I listened to ‘How to Have a Good Death’ on BBC Radio 4 last night (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rvpq1). Hosted by Dr Kevin Foy, the programme aimed to explore how death, despite its universal certainty, is such a taboo subject, and as a result, discussions around dying tend to be avoided. The programme also specifically addressed the current controversial Liverpool Care of the Dying Pathway (LCP) and its implementation.

Contributors included Dr Kate Granger, who I have spoken about previously (https://sufferingandthearts.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/terminally-ill-doctor-to-tweet-from-her-deathbed/). Dr Granger is a junior doctor who has incurable cancer. She has broken with convention and chosen to openly and publicly (including on twitter) speak about her experience living, and dying, with terminal disease.

Recent years have seen a dramatic improvement in the care of the dying. As discussed on air, death is ‘complicated’ and requires its own specialty, Palliative Medicine. I have my own views on this, which I will come back to another time, but I do wonder whether we have over medicalised dying as a result of such specialisation…

Contributors also included the originators of the LCP. Whatever one’s views on the pathway, at the very least it serves as a platform from which issues around death and dying can be openly addressed and discussed, which potentially facilitates those affected having a say in their own dying process.

The prospect of death and the certainty of our mortality fills most people with fear. We tend to speak less about what we fear most, which epitomises how we deal with the subject of death and dying.

Which is why I welcome programmes such as ‘How to Have a Good Death’. I may not fully understand the concept of a ‘Good Death’, but I embrace opportunities that expose us to the taboo subject of mortality, and which challenge us to stop and consider our own dying, and even perhaps ultimately accepting it…

CQ