by Dr. Angelo Volandes (Boston Globe, January 11, 2015)
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| Image from The Globe article |
"End-of-life
care in America is
broken at every level. A recent Institute of Medicine report paints a damning
picture of end-of-life care in this country: It needs to be entirely
overhauled. We live in a city with some of the best hospitals in the world, the
“Wall Street” of American health care. I work in one of the best hospitals on
earth, and I’ve watched patients die in ways that are protracted, dehumanizing,
and far more painful than they needed to be."
"Sometimes, patients and families don’t want to face death.
But more often, the problem lies with the medical profession. The principal
reason we have gotten death so wrong is because doctors fail to have meaningful
discussions with patients and their families about how to live life’s final
chapter."
"Americans
receive some of the best health care money can buy; they also experience some
of the worst deaths in the developed world. By most accounts, the American
transformation of death from a natural process occurring at home to a
medicalized event taking place outside of the home has been disastrous. The
health care system is teeming with brilliant scientists, but there is a dearth
of effective communicators and advocates."
"What
people need most on this journey is not the promise of the next new technology,
but rather a guide to help them navigate this dark forest in which we all will
undoubtedly find ourselves. People need doctors who are honest enough and
capable of explaining new technologies with the accompanying risks and
benefits, and discussing whether those technologies would truly benefit them."
The author has recently published a book on this topic, "The Conversation."
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