Before 1950, most
Americans died at home, from what were once familiarly described as “natural
causes.”
By the 1980s, only
about 1 out of 6 deaths occurred at home—most folks died in hospitals or
nursing homes. The practice of medicine had expanded to embrace one’s last moments
in an institutional setting, instead of the relative comfort of one’s own bed.
The trend toward dying in a hospital bed has
reversed itself. Data from 2010 shows that about 45% of Americans departed this
life in hospice care, and more than half of those folks received hospice care
at home. These U. S. figures are among the highest in the world.
Dr. Atul Gawande writes in Being Mortal: “…our
most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to
recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer;
that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in
life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture,
and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last
chapters of everyone’s lives.”
Dr. Gawande explores
the often un-mentioned truth that simply “living as long as possible” isn’t the
real wish of many people, and probably isn’t what most people really want.
“We’ve been wrong
about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and
survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And
well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive.” (1)
Most folks say that “quality
of life” is most important at the end.
Read Being Mortal.
Take some time to
think about what “quality of life” means to you.
Talk to your doctor
and your loved ones about it.
Copyright © Richard
Carl Subber 2015
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