On Thursday 22 May 2014 from 7–9pm Denver Colorado USA’s Mercury Cafe will host a unique evening. At Choosing How to Die I’ll present a concise introduction to Overcoming the 7 Deadly Obstacles to Dying in Peace, identifying the obstacles (the first step to assessing, mitigating, and overcoming them). We’ll show Terry Pratchett’s documentary Choosing to Die, […]
Tonight was the second session (of ten overall) of the Boulder Fire Department Citizen Academy. The police department has run a similar program for some time; this is the fire department’s inaugural. About three dozen vetted citizens are receiving a pumper fleet’s worth of information from a range of folks including the department’s highest echelons. Tonight […]
e-Patient Dave deBronkart just published a guest post at his blog regarding whether the term “e-patient” has run its useful course and is an inaccurate descriptor because it continues and reinforces the mindset of people needing medical treatment (I use “treatment”, not “care”) as conditions rather than persons. Finding right language can be crazymaking. Especially […]
For 2-1/2 days in early December 2013 in Boston, MA about 350 people (roughly 90% medical providers and 10% citizens) convened to ponder the problems of medical overuse, underuse, and misuse; From Avoidable Care to Right Care. This lay person end-of-life reform advocate attended on scholarship. The Institute made an investment in me as a […]
Today is a little milestone: my first (and thus far only) TEDx talk—Dying IN Peace to Die AT Peace: New Terms of Engagement—has been accessed 1,000 times. Small by internet standards; a mold spore as compared to a virus. Yet 1,000 people is still a sizable number of people to touch. I had hoped for […]
Haphazard Encounters of the Last Kind (Why Everyone Hates the Thought of Dying) One sentence abstract: Just as price transparency is required for a financially equitable and true marketplace, treatment orientation transparency is required for just and peaceful dying. Since 2004–05 as a result of my parents’ three-week terminal hospitalizations (Mom’s, comatose and intubated in […]
Note: ePatient Dave deBronkart recently blogged, in his ongoing series on public speaking, about the role of cognitive dissonance in effective talks. That concept sits behind this post like an invisible framework. I don’t address cognitive dissonance directly but the concept is embedded throughout the TEDx talk I delivered. I highly recommend reading Dave’s explication […]
What does a Quickie button from the mid 1970s have to do with dying in peace in the 20-teens? Watch my new, recent TEDxFoCo talk to find out…
For the first time, I’m now published in a medical journal. The article’s entitled “It’s Time to Account for Medical Error in “Top Ten Causes of Death” Charts” published by the Society of Participatory Medicine’s Journal of Participatory Medicine. Thanks to editor Kathleen O’Malley and SoPM co-fonder Dave deBronkart for their interest and insightful editorial […]
Occasionally I get a touch cranky. I want to clearly say that palliative medicine and those who offer it to its fullest deserve our gratitude. And I don’t want to alienate any palliative provider I might ask for assistance in the future. But I remain highly skeptical and deeply worried because every exposure I have […]
