Occupation: Journalist Birth: 1949
Let's spend less on trying to fix the unfixable in the last five years of life and spend more supporting people so that they can stay the least disab….
Attempting to grapple with improving end-of-life care is a political third rail..
We offer such false hopes to people that every medical problem can be fixed even when you're starting to deal with an 80- or a 90-year-old body that ….
I think it's very interesting that [doctors] privilege the self that is saying, "I don't want to die," but want to discount the self that said, "I wa….
Very few of us are succeeding in giving our parents the ideal death..
Three-quarters of people say they want to die at home, but only a quarter of people actually do..
Almost anyone you talk to will say, 'I don't want to die plugged into machines..
To do more, is not necessarily to do better..
I don't think people ever were free of fear of death, but clinging to life and being so unprepared for it is a modern experience..
I've heard doctors say that before the crisis hits, people don't want prolonged measures, but then in the middle of the crisis they want everything..
I want to break the taboo against questioning this drive for maximum longevity..
I want people to suffer less, and I think it's possible..