Death & Beyond

Death: Fighting and Facing Reality

By cjliu | May 25, 2020

CJ Liu interviews Christopher Kerr, MD, Phd about his book, “Death is but a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life’s End.” Dr. Kerr is the CEO and chief medical officer at Hospice Buffalo. Dr. Kerr shares shares his frustration with an avoidable but very common situation before his patients reach hospice. Primarily, that patients often are not realistic, prepared with the facts, and clear with probabilities of outcomes. As a result they neglect to properly plan for death.

For example, a cancer patient is told that they will most likely die in 6 months. Even though they may have been told realistic outcomes ( e.g.- 6 mos to live), the patient and their families fall pray to our cultural beliefs of outliving the odds. While both medical professionals and families fall prey to this type of thinking, it is really a result of cultural conditioning. We live in a culture that promotes the idea that technology can solve any problem, and we focus precious time fighting versus coming to peace with a potential reality. As a result of these efforts, patients often face death with very little time to digest death and a peaceful acceptance. Both loved ones and the dying are more traumatized.

Dr. Kerr shares that 33% of his patients come to hospice with only 7 days to live even though they may have been told earlier that they have much longer to live (e.g.-six months to live). Dr. Kerr’s advice is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. While Dr. Kerr believes in the power of hope to fight the presenting diagnosis, patients need to be realistic too and be careful of the “cult” like obsession to control our thoughts to be only positive.