What Dying People Want: Practical Wisdom For The End Of Life

by David Kuhl

Overview

Facing death results in more fear and anxiety than any other human experience. Though much has been done to address the physical pain suffered by those with a terminal illness, Western medicine has been slow to understand and alleviate the psychological and spiritual distress that comes with the knowledge of death. In What Dying People Want, Dr. David Kuhl begins to bridge that gap by addressing end-of-life realities—practical and emotional—through his own experiences as a doctor and through the words and experiences of people who knew that they were dying.

Dr. Kuhl presents ways of finding new life in the process of dying, understanding the inner reality of living with a terminal illness, and addressing the fear of pain, as well as pain itself. He also offers concrete guidance on how to enhance doctor/patient relationships and hold family meetings, and provides an introduction to the process of life review.

It is possible to find meaning and peace in the face of death. What Dying People Want "helps us learn to view the knowledge of death as a gift, not a curse." (New Times)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781586481971
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	07/10/2003
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	0.79(w) x 5.50(h) x 8.50(d)

About the Author

Dr. David Kuhl began his career in palliative care sixteen years ago, providing medical care for people with cancer in his private practice, and subsequently developed a palliative care program for St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. His team at St. Paul's has attended thousands of people at the end of life. A Soros Faculty Scholar and a frequent speaker on palliative care all over North America, Kuhl is currently developing a program for doctors on dealing with terminally ill patients. He lives in British Columbia with his family.

Read an Excerpt

Eight years ago, I sat next to a dying woman and wondered about the pain she was experiencing. Her name was Alice. She had cancer. She had been on the palliative care unit of St. Paul's Hospital for a considerable amount of time and I felt that I knew her well. Every day I went in to hear her report of the poorly controlled, nagging pain in her chest. Of course she had pain in her chest; she had lung cancer, inoperable, untreatable lung cancer. She was facing death and in another way seemed to be hanging on to life. I experienced a growing frustration and in increasing sense of wanting to avoid seeing her. Her pain, her suffering, her anguish was so real, so apparent in her eyes and in the tone of her voice. I didn't want to give in to the sense of emerging incompetence I felt about not being able to help her by reducing her pain. Team members asked, "Isn't there anything else we can do-increase her medication, add another drug, call in the music therapist, pastoral care, or perhaps physiotherapy?" But nothing seemed to work. Alice was facing death and I was facing a sense of failure. The team had cared for many other people with lung cancer. They were testimony to the fact that cancer pain could be controlled, shortness of breath usually managed. Alice's pain was just like that of the other patients-and yet it was entirely different. Her pain was evidence that not all pain can be controlled. What were we missing?

With a sense of desperation I decided to ask Alice a question I had never asked a patient before. Holding her hand, I said: "We haven't been too successful in decreasing your pain. I wonder whether there is a possibility that the pain in your chest is actually not a pain resulting from the cancer. I have a sense that it is a pain in your heart, a pain I can not touch." She looked at me intently. She said "Yes. The pain is in my heart. It's the difficulty I'm having with my daughter, Ruth. She is marrying a man I do not approve of and I told her so. My daughter, my only child, did not like what I had to say. But I had to speak my truth because by the time she realizes that it is true, I will no longer be alive. I don't expect….and what's more, I don't want this pain to be taken away."

Caring for Alice resulted in an "aha" for me. Unless the situation changed between her and her daughter, Alice would die suffering the loss of relationship with her only child. There were no medications for the anguish she would feel.

Dying is more than just a physical event. It is a process which includes one's whole being-the physical, psychological and spiritual. Alice's situation resulted in a new insight for me; namely, that I was ill equipped as a palliative care physician to address or understand what psychological and spiritual pain was all about. Medical school and residency training had not prepared me to meet that challenge. The best I could do was to acknowledge that her experience of pain was beyond my skill and training at that time. Why had it been so difficult for me to ask her about the 'pain in her heart'? Why had it taken me so long to recognize the complexity of her pain?

Alice made me think and feel differently about 'whole person care'. I started to ask some different questions. How would I begin to more effectively address the spiritual and psychological pain and suffering of the people I would meet each day in my practice? How could I address it if I didn't even understand it? What if I was Alice? What would it be like to know that I would die within hours, days, weeks, or months? If my doctor told me I had a terminal illness, would I live differently? Would I practice medicine differently? If I had a 'true' understanding of the experience of living with a terminal illness as told to me by my patients, would I practice medicine differently? Does the 'inside' of us change once we have been told we are going to die? Do our relationships take on a different perspective? Does our understanding of God influence us during that time? Who could and would answer these questions?

Like Alice, only those people with a terminal illness know what it is like to live with that illness. They are our best teachers. They are the ones who could answer my questions. How could I learn to listen, to really listen to what they were telling me, rather than for the information I wanted to hear?

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Facing Death
Chapter One: Time and Anxiety
Chapter Two: Bad News
Chapter Three: Physical Pain
Chapter Four: Being Touched; Being in Touch
Chapter Five: Life Review
Chapter Six: Speaking the Truth
Chapter Seven: Longing to Belong
Chapter Eight: Self-Realization: Who Am I?
Chapter Nine: Transcendence
Conclusion: Embracing Life
Appendix: Talking to Terminally Ill Patients: Guidelines for Physicians
Notes
Bibliography
Permissions
Index

Editorial Reviews

Drawing from case studies that he conducted as part of the Soros Foundation's "Death in America" project, Kuhl provides a balanced perspective on caring for the terminally ill. An M.D. himself, he acknowledges that doctors sometimes have poor interpersonal skills, and he offers helpful insight into why this is so and how patients can foster better communication. Besides discussing the physician's account of the clinical aspects of the dying process, Kuhl sensitively examines the harder-to-define psychological and spiritual issues. Unfortunately, he often focuses too much on certain patients whose stories are interesting but perhaps less applicable to the average person. Written for a general audience, this book will also fit well into medical libraries and other healthcare collections. Kuhl's research makes a good companion to Cynthia Pearson and Margaret L. Stubbs's Parting Company: Understanding the Loss of a Loved One. [The Soros Foundation, named after Hungarian American philanthropist George Soros, is a group of nonprofit organizations dedicated to creating and sustaining open societies around the world. Ed.] Annette Haines, Art & Design Field Lib., Anne Arbor, MI Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Drawing on ten years of interviews with terminally ill patients and their families for the Project on Death in America, and literary and other sources of wisdom, a Vancouver, BC physician to cancer patients penetrates the denial shrouding death in our culture. Dr. Kuhl gives advice on improving communication and palliative care for psychological and spiritual as well as physical pain. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR