Quote of the Day

“God says:  Do not fear the hour of your death.  For when the moment comes, I will draw my breath, and you will come to Me like a needle to a magnet.”

Saint Mechtilde

Most First-Day Deaths in the First World

Well, this is inexcusable.  Save the Children reports that the U. S. has the highest rate of babies who die the same day they were born in the First World.  Our babies die at twice the rate as babies born in the EU.

The death rate in this country is 40% higher among babies born to poor mothers.

The Problem with Twitter

Some people apparently read the hash tag referring to Margaret Thatcher, #nowthatcherisdead, as saying now that Cher is dead.

Spaces really can be the difference between life and death…

Quote of the Day

“Reading isn’t the opposite of doing.  It’s the opposite of dying.”

Will Schwalbe,  The End of Your Life Book Club

A Senseless Death

A nine-week-old girl from Idaho has died from whooping cough, an entirely preventable disease that should no longer be occurring in the U. S., let alone killing anybody.

I hope all the morons who refuse to get their kids immunized are happy.

 

What Doctors Know About Death

Ken Murray has an excellent column in today’s WSJ called “Why Doctors Die Differently.”  Here’s a sample:

“Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach.  It was diagnosed as pancreatic cancer by one of the best surgeons in the country, who had developed a procedure that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds — from 5% to 15% — albeit with a poor quality of life.

“Charlie, 68 years old, was uninterested.  He went home the next day, closed his practice and never set foot in a hospital again.  He focused on spending time with his family.  Several months later, he died at home.  He got no chemotherapy, radiation or surgical treatment.  Medicare didn’t spend much on him.

“It’s not something that we like to talk about, but doctors die, too.  What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared with most Americans, but how little.  They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care that they could want.  But they tend to go serenely and gently.

“Physicians really try to honor their patients’ wishes, but when patients ask ‘What would you do?,’ we often avoid answering.  We don’t want to impose our views on the vulnerable.

“The result is that more people receive futile ‘lifesaving’ care, and fewer people die at home than did, say, 60 years ago.”  Emphasis added.