Americans are waking up to the fact that the $170 billion that Medicare spends on the last six months of life is not helping us die well. Instead, the way we die today tends to be protracted, undignified, and painful. Sarah Palin’s “death panel” debacle temporarily stifled all discussion on the subject, but the silence has been broken by dialogue inspired by the Institute of Medicine’s recent report, Dying in …
I had always thought I could never be a great doctor because I felt too emotionally bound to my patients. It was impossible for me to hold back tears when feeling that gut wrenching empathy for families mourning the passing of their loved ones. Because it always seemed as if I were the only resident moved by these scenes, I reasoned that this was an unprofessional impulse that prevented me …
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