The PBS Frontline documentary Being Mortal focuses on doctors and their patients who are dealing with chronic illness and nearing the end of their life. It investigates how some doctors are ill-equipped to talk about chronic illness and death with their patients and how this can lead to a lesser quality of life at the end of life stage for patients. In this documentary, we followed Dr. Atul Gawade on his journey to educate himself and others about the difficult emotional aspects of dying. The director, Thomas Jennings, along with Dr. Gawade, created a fantastic documentary about how it is important for doctors to talk to dying patients about their mortality. This was effectively done by offering experiences and interviews from doctors and their patients, by following the declining path of the patient, and by showing the real life emotion of the patients, families and doctors working through to the end.
The director started the documentary with an experience that led Dr. Gawade to question if he was dealing with his patient’s mortality in the best way possible. This brings up the main question; Is it better to talk about mortality early in treatment? The director and Dr.
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The director then touched on the end of life personal preparations of the patient. Through the interviews, music and locations, he managed to share the sadness and peace that the patients and families were experiencing. The documentary also reflected on how difficult it was for the doctors to come to terms with their patient being at the end of their life and the failure they felt in not being able to help them further. In doing this the director helped the viewer understand how important it is for us to understand our mortality and be prepared to answer our important questions earlier rather than
When it comes to a bad diagnosis it is often difficult for doctors to tell their patients this devastating news. The doctor will likely hold back from telling the patient the whole truth about their health because they believe the patient will become depressed. However, Schwartz argues that telling the patient the whole truth about their illness will cause depression and anxiety, but rather telling the patient the whole truth will empower and motivate the patient to make the most of their days. Many doctors will often also prescribe or offer treatment that will likely not help their health, but the doctors do so to make patients feel as though their may be a solution to the problem as they are unaware to the limited number of days they may have left. In comparison, people who are aware there is no cure to their diagnosis and many choose to live their last days not in the hospital or pain free from medications without a treatment holding them back. They can choose to live their last days with their family and will have more time and awareness to handle a will. Schwartz argues the importance of telling patients the truth about their diagnosis and communicating the person’s likely amount of time left as it will affect how the patient chooses to live their limited
“In quixotically trying to conquer death doctors all too frequently do no good for their patients’ “ease” but at the same time they do harm instead by prolonguing and even magnifying patients’ dis-ease.”
The sub-title of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ book describes her audience as doctors, nurses, clergy and the family of dying patients. Because of her target audience the book is written on a more emotional level, citing examples of both positive and negative death experiences. There are no detailed descriptions of what happens to the body as it dies, just discussions of how the dying person might feel and how they might want to experience their last moments of life. Sherwin Nuland takes a much more scientific approach with his book “How We Die”. In chapter seven, Accidents, Suicide and Euthanasia, Nuland describes in great detail the pathophysiology of why a person dies from sepsis and pulmonary infection. His book is targeted more towards the health care professional who is familiar with long drawn out discussions of the pathophysiology of a certain disease process. The choice of target audience by each author correlates to their discussions regarding who controls the death experience. Kübler-Ross argues for patient input and control and so...
Being in hospice care is a better alternative than being stuck in the hospital to try to avoid the unavoidable. Common misconceptions about Hospice could include that hospice makes life more miserable; however, a physician expressed his findings in Hospice,“You can only fail a patient if you fail to understand and respond to their needs. We may not be able to cure all of our patients, but if we can make them comfortable in the last moments of their lives, we will not have failed them”..Hospice care gradually emerged in the 1970s, when groups like the National Hospice Organization were formed “in response to the unmet needs of dying patients and their families for whom traditional medical care was no longer effective.”Herbert Hendin, an executive director of the American Suicide Foundations illustrates a story of a young man diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia and was expected to have only a few months before he died. He persistently asked the doctor to assist him, but he eventually accepted the medical treatment. His doctor told him he can use his time wisely to become close to his family. Two days before he died, Tim talked about what he would have missed without the opportunity for a
In Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Values, Peter Singer examines ethical dilemmas that confront us in the twentieth century by identifying inconsistencies between the theory and practice of ethics in medicine. With advancements in medical technology, we focus on the quality of patients’ lives. Singer believes that in this process, we have acknowledged a new set of values that conflicts with the doctrine of the sanctity of life.
In the book Being Mortal by Dr. Atul Gawande, he discusses the many grievous trials people face near the end of life. Gawande uses the many experiences that he has had as a doctor and the experiences in his own family to give insight into the good and bad end of life decisions. Reading all of Gawande’s experiences has made me realize the large amount of illness and death I have faced in the last 5 years and helped me to reflect on the outcomes of those events and some of the dilemmas faced by my family. From nursing homes to old age to even terminal cancer in those who are not elderly, all of these topics were extensively covered by Gawande and have been a part of my everyday life.
While the majority of the book critiques the healthcare system, Chapter 13 focuses more on key actions and personality traits that help Dr. Stone relate to patients. Although this noteworthy, compassionate physician attempts to develop an understanding of his patients’ values and goals, he still fails Mrs. Jackson by trying to retain cultural competency by tiptoeing around end-of-life decisions. Conversations about feeding tube placement and DNR orders could have minimized Mrs. Jackson’s unnecessary
Just as we witness life, we must witness death. It is neither defeat nor failure, but a normal process in life. It is always devastating for the patients and their family members to be given a diagnosis of terminal illness, with the feeling of hopelessness as there is nothing more that can be done. It’s not totally true! No matter how big or small the intervention is, there is always something that can be done. And oftenly, it is the little things that make a huge difference to the patients and their family
I am presented with questions, from both family and patients, regarding when it is appropriate to die peacefully and not prolong living with a terminal disease. I see how hard it is on the family and the patient when they do not agree about an end of life decision. During a start of care, I always ask if the patient has a DNR. Although it is a simple yes or no question, I believe after viewing these videos, I will discuss the importance of making their wishes known, to both the family and healthcare staff, prior to experiencing a condition that could prevent them from expressing their wishes. It is very important to discuss this information with their family and physician and take appropriate action when they are still fairly healthy and in sound
The movie WIT illustrates this unpleasant reality in an unashamed way, time and time again. The patient, Dr. Bearing, is treated more as a medical experiment rather than a person currently going through one of the worst scenarios possible in life. Rather than giving her hope and optimism, the doctors give her orders and demands to ‘take the full dose’ no matter what. Rather than actually involving her in the decisions regarding her individual life, they treat her as though her fate has already been decided and now all that remains is a chance to gain valuable knowledge—at the expense of her having any kind of comfort in her last moments
How would you feel if you had to watch a loved one with a horrible terminal illness live in complete agony for the rest of their life? You would just want to do everything you could do to try and help them. Sometimes you have to think, if this were me would I want this done? It’s hard to watch a family member suffer and there isn't really much you can do to fix it. It’s would also be hard if the sick person lived alone with no family. Sometimes the
planning end of life can be extremely difficult for the patient and their family members. They
A Death of One's Own (2000) is a segment that unravels the complications underlying the many choices at the end of life. Narrated by Bill Moyers, the viewers are taken for the bedside of the dying to the obverse line of efforts to expand end-of-life care. Not only does the terminally ill patients struggles with the topics of physician assisted suicide and pain relief that could speed up death, but also the caregivers.
Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes expressing unbearable pain? You can see only one wish in such eyes and that is to die. For me, I saw it every day for nine long months as I watch my father in law suffer and die of stage four esophageal cancer. The pain and suffering he went through was so unbearable to watch and the hopeless feeling I had of not being able to do anything to take away the pain. There were days when he would ask us to just put him out of the miserable, horrible pain he was in; but we all knew that there was no legal way to do this for him. To watch as he
In his TED Talk, BJ Miller discussed the end of life with the hope of bringing attention to how we die. BJ Mille started of his presentation by talking about his experience with death and how one night changed his whole life. It is through his own death and the lives of his patients that Miller can fully explain what it truly felt like to experience dying and what our healthcare needs to improve on how people die. For Miller, the fundamental problem for hospitals is that they were designed to be a place to treat diseases, not a place for people and those with terminal diseases. He explained that we have to change the system so that it is more sensitive towards differentiating between necessary suffering which is the consequences of their condition