On the spectrum or go gentle vs fight, I'd have to say, now is the time is history where "fight" makes the most sense.

This is not abstract for me. I have not one, but two forms of cancer.

Both were considered incurable when I was diagnosed.

Both have treatments now that, IN SOME PEOPLE, lead to remission.

I still don't know which group I am, but I'd be dead from either one by now, if I hadn't elected to treat.

New treatments, for SOME cancers are literally coming out monthly.

So the fact that you can't be cured today, does mean there won't be a better treatment by next year, if you can hang on.

I should find out soon on my more aggressive one. Either way, I plan on continuing to try.

Last week one of my patients with preterminal NYHA Stage IV cardiac failure looked into euthanasia.

He found predictably that it is now legal in my country but takes months and formidable legal resources to obtain it. Legalisation of euthanasia has, as everyone in the field warned multiple times, made it much harder to obtain and now requires a lot of time, effort and money.

The well meaning, naive proponents of legalisation of euthanasia have actually made things a lot harder for those who want it. The potential legal penalties for not getting the paperwork right, include loss of employment, deregistration and homicide charges. So now virtually no doctor wants to be involved for any amount of money.

So I told him how to contact the local palliative care unit when he decides to die, gave him documentation attesting to his preterminal , incurable status and taught him the magic words to almost instantly access that terminal, euthanising, life ending dose of mist. morphine...

"I have breathlessness and bone pain"

Also told him never again to say the word "euthanasia" to anyone, unless he wants a ride on the endless merry-go-round of legal paperwork.

Placing the hands in the abhaya mudra is optional...

I'm a physician, an old one. We're lucky to live as long as we do, but life will end. The article emphasizes the value of dying peacefully. Sure, that's how we want it to be, but we have to make it known to assure it goes that way.

Don't know what happens elsewhere, but every time I see a doctor someone asks if I have a signed, notarized directive. Yes, I've done that, but so should everybody else concerned about the issue.

I have asked aged patients the same question. More than not the answer is "no". Why haven't you? Various versions of "on my list of things to do". We can't really predict future events, in our own interests best to be prepared. Some will take the hint, more than not, people procrastinate.

At least I've done what I can do, but we can't save people from themselves. Maybe people in healthcare are more aware of what's at stake, but everyone has the option to make it as clear as possible their wish (no, their demand) to die in peace.

> Even when the right preparations have been made, the system can still swallow people up. One of my patients was a man named Jack... He explained to me that he never, under any circumstances, wanted to be placed on life support machines again.

> Even with all his wishes documented, Jack hadn’t died as he’d hoped. The system had intervened. One of the nurses, I later found out, even reported my unplugging of Jack to the authorities as a possible homicide. Nothing came of it, of course; Jack’s wishes had been spelled out explicitly, and he’d left the paperwork to prove it.

It's interesting that our laws punish homicide with maximum criminal penalties, but the opposite (keeping someone alive against their wishes) seems to be assault and battery at worst, with much much lighter punishment.

> Many people think of CPR as a reliable lifesaver when, in fact, the results are usually poor. I’ve had hundreds of people brought to me in the emergency room after getting CPR. Exactly one, a healthy man who’d had no heart troubles (for those who want specifics, he had a ‘tension pneumothorax’), walked out of the hospital.

This point has been made by many medically trained people over decades. It's a very energetic intensive process, it cracks ribs. If it's not done promptly the brain has been starved of oxygen.

While I understand people not wanting to drag politics into everything I invite you to think about this and the situation of the senior senator for Kentucky.

Title should be corrected to the original:

---

How doctors die. It’s not like the rest of us, but it should be

---

Note to submitters: Check the title after submitting. If the HN algorithm mangled it as badly as this one, edit it!

Can confirm. Top of the article could be about my dad. Same flavor of cancer and everything.