The Blog by Ziyad Nazem

How Doctors Die

USC medical school professor Dr. Ken Murray has an interesting article titled ‘How Doctors Die’ outlining the difference between how most people die and how doctors die. As he says, “It’s not like the rest of us, but it should be.”

We as physicians are deeply familiar with how people usually die, and the incredible suffering that the medical system sometimes imposes on us. Because we’ve seen a lot more medically-induced suffering, and are more familiar with the limits of medicine in extending life, we as doctors are much more likely to die at home, with little medical intervention. That’s a much better match with most people’s stated preferences — many more Americans say they’d like to die at home (as opposed to in a hospital) than actually do.

How Doctors Die is a moving essay on how doctors choose to die in contrast to the “futile-care” imposed on the rest of the population — definitely a good read.

It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.

You can read the article in it’s entirety at: How Doctors Die on Zocalo Public Square