Dr Kathryn Mannix1
1Palliative Care Physician and Cognitive Behavioural Therapist
Abstract:
Until the mid 20th century, dying people lived at home and were cared for by their communities. Everyone was familiar with the process of dying. As medical advances made the delaying of dying a possibility, people in wealthy nations and communities began to move to hospital in the hope of life-saving treatments: and, of course, many lives are (temporarily) saved. Yet a secondary effect of those medical advances has been a creeping loss of public familiarity with ordinary dying, as death has become displaced into hospital and its process disrupted by medical interventions. Understanding of dying has been replaced by unrepresentative soap opera tropes and media scare stories.
Let’s consider how we might reclaim public understanding of ordinary dying, and how that might restore confidence and hope.