Some of the commonest questions in medicine sound deceptively simple.“When is the baby due?” “How long have I got?”
People ask these questions as though there should be a clean answer. A date. A time. Something solid enough to write on a calendar.
Medicine, however, deals mostly in estimates.
Category: end of life
Preparing for Birth…But Not for Death?
We offer expectant parents an abundance of preparation: prenatal classes, Lamaze, “prepared childbirth,” baby groups, and parenting workshops.
What Kubler-Ross still teaches us about dying
I still remember the quiet after I told a patient her cancer had spread. She looked at me for a long time, then said,” You must be wrong”. I wasn’t– but in that moment, denial wasn’t a failure to understand. It was protection. She needed a few days before she could face what the scans had already shown.
Parallel Pioneers in Compassionate Care: Dr. Balfour Mount and Dr. Murray Enkin
One of my heroes died recently. Dr. Balfour Mount (1939-2025) was a Canadian pioneer in palliative care. He founded the first palliative care service, in fact the first in North America, at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal in 1974. Trained as a urologist and surgeon, he was moved by the suffering he witnessed among patients dying in his hospital.
What If We Treated Death like Birth in Our Society?
In the not too distant past, open displays of pregnancy were frowned upon. We often discouraged pregnant women from working. They dressed in tent-like garments to hide their bump. On television, their condition was hidden from view until Lucillle Ball broke the taboo by using her own pregnancy in I Love Lucy. Look how far we have come. Now we celebrate pregnancy with baby showers, birth plans, prenatal classes, books, apps and more. Families prepare for the new arrival.