Death Interrupted | Radiolab Podcast

From the Radiolab podcast: An ICU doctor promotes accepting death, then his dad gets terminal cancer.
As a lifeguard, a paramedic, and then an ER doctor, Blair Bigham found his calling: saving lives. But when he started to work in the ICU, he slowly realized that sometimes keeping people (and their hopes) alive just prolongs the suffering. He wrote a book arguing that a too-late death is just as bad as a too-early one, and that physicians and the public alike need to get better at accepting the inevitability of death sooner.
As the book hit the bestseller list, Blair’s own father got diagnosed with a deadly case of pancreatic cancer. Blair’s every impulse was in direct contradiction of the book he just wrote. What should he do? And how can any of us know when to stop fighting death and when to start making peace with it?
Special thanks to Lucie Howell and Heather Haley.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by Latif Nasser
Produced by Simon Adler, with help from Alyssa Jeong Perry
Original music and sound design contributed by Simon Adler, with mixing help from Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by Natalie Middleton, and edited by Pat Walters
EPISODE CITATIONS:
"Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine is Complicating the Way We Die" by Blair Bigham - store.walrusmagazine.com/prod...
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Photo illustration Jared Bartman
Video by W. Harry Fortuna

[@B3nderb]

Thank you, Radio Lab and Blair for this story

[@mhefler1498]

Amazing story of love, life, and death.

[@xyzbesixdouze]

We need more doctors that aren't just laywers that know the procedures, but are scientists or engineers. We have solved the Poincaré conjecture, but don't know why and how certains drugs actually work. Medical imagery should be stored in a global database and studied by AI, to get us out of the Middle Ages, so we need more of it and it must be commercialised. Also this would reduce the cognitive and morale disonance where resources have to be optimised in times of scarcity. Yet it's only monetary scarcity. If David Beckham would have some stomach problems, there would be no issue in taking a mri and flying him with a helicopter to the specialist. And even your father had the privilege of having a son who's a doctor. Imagine all the rest of the world without connections still loosing their loved ones fighting the battle uphill.

[@xyzbesixdouze]

And then doctors should be educated in the theories of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Taking a second path to provide a gracefull dignifying end game, is not the same as giving up. It's like a spare tire, an alternative that also requires attention. Neglecting it, gives a worse outcome. If early detection makes a better prognosis, then early paliative guidance is the only thing you would have wished for when it's all over. Radiolab about her: czcams.com/video/JEObqL6az1U/video.html

[@marneewong]

And Stephen Jenkinson 'Die Wise'