Dr. Gawande on WBUR discussing end-of-life care. (His interview with Terry Gross about the same topic is here.)
I’m reblogging this only because it’s so painfully boring and unsexy. Dr. Gawande, although very smart and very eloquent, is simply not the type of spokesperson to make this issue come to life and get more and more people to start thinking about the experience they want as their lives come to an end. He’s your typical academic but with a special gift of eloquence.
My point is you really do have a choice and more and more people need to think about how they want to spend their last days. They can look like this:
or this (a photo I took of my grandma’s room the day she died peacefully at home):
But how can we actually have a meaningful conversation that truly engages people about this serious issue? Most doctors will do all they can for you…that’s what doctors do…we save lives. But do you really want doctors to do everything we can for you? You’ve got a choice. How do we as a society best communicate the issue and engage people?