Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Discussion had brought La Crosse’s end-of-life costs down to half the national average. It was that simple—and that complicated.

“Culture has tremendous inertia,” he said. “That’s why it’s culture. It works because it lasts. Culture strangles innovation in the crib.”

death matters analytically, on the basis of the facts. But the facts

backed-up

the issue isn’t merely a matter of financing. It arises from a still unresolved argument about what the function of medicine really is—what, in other words, we should and should not be paying for doctors to

The result: those who saw a palliative care specialist stopped chemotherapy sooner, entered hospice far earlier, experienced less suffering at the end of their lives—and they lived 25 percent longer. In other words, our decision making in medicine has failed so spectacularly that we have reached the point of actively inflicting harm on patients rat

One has to decide whether one’s fears or one’s hopes are what should matter most.

“Culture is the sum total of shared habits and expectations,” Thomas told me.

Somehow the concept didn’t occur to me, even when I saw people my own age die. I had a white coat on; they had a hospital gown.