How will you know when it time to stop fighting to stay alive?
Are we really better off because we're projected to live longer than our parents did?
Health Policy expert Ezekial Emanuel wrote a thought - provoking essay on how he hopes to die at 75. To be clear, he's not suggesting or endorsing suicide or anything of the sort when he reaches that age. Rather, his entire approach to his personal healthcare will change:
Once I have lived to 75, my approach to my health care will completely change. I won’t actively end my life. But I won’t try to prolong it, either. Today, when the doctor recommends a test or treatment, especially one that will extend our lives, it becomes incumbent upon us to give a good reason why we don’t want it. The momentum of medicine and family means we will almost invariably get it.
My attitude flips this default on its head. I take guidance from what Sir William Osler wrote in his classic turn-of-the-century medical textbook,The Principles and Practice of Medicine: “Pneumonia may well be called the friend of the aged. Taken off by it in an acute, short, not often painful illness, the old man escapes those ‘cold gradations of decay’ so distressing to himself and to his friends.”
What do you think of his intentions?
Read the full article here....
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/
Read the full article here....
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/
