dying

Patients, and Doctors, Aren’t Dying at Home

Doctors, it turns out, aren’t much different than everyone else when it comes to where they die. More

Fear of Dying Alone

What if a patient dies and nobody is there to mourn? Is it like a tree falling soundlessly in the forest? More

The Little Things

Although technically these are the little things, in a sense they’re actually the big things. Indeed, for some patients, the little thing may be the only thing that matters. More

Doc, How Much Time I Got?

There are few situations more horrible than having to tell another human being that he or she is going to die. And it doesn’t get any easier with experience… More

Doctors and the D Word….

I could understand why other people might prefer euphemisms for death, but why medical professionals? Weren’t we supposed to be much more comfortable with the workings of the human body? Didn’t we pride ourselves on our technical accuracy? Didn’t we say “umbilicus” instead of “belly button”? More

Doctor at the Funeral

Death is a given in medicine. That truism, though, doesn’t offer much comfort when it’s your patient who has died. I was in clinic the other day, showing the ropes to a fresh-faced medical student, when a nurse leaned toward me and whispered that L.W. had died over the holiday weekend.

It was like a sucker-punch in the gut, the raw rope of grief lashing out unexpectedly. More

Palliative Care: From the Get-Go

The scientific world finally produced the data to support what seems so obvious: Palliative care belongs in the beginning of cancer treatment, not just at the end. More

A Patient, a Death, but No One to Grieve

What if a patient dies and nobody is there to mourn? Is it like a tree falling silently in the forest? More

Memoir of Lost Love

Kay Redfield Jamison writes movingly of her love for her husband, and chronicles the illnesses that he faced in clear-eyed, heartfelt prose. Danielle Ofri reviews her book for The Lancet. More