![]() ![]() The very act of listening delivered illness and dying from the realm of disease and the restricted province of doctors to the realm of lived experience and the personal domain of individuals. Kübler-Ross and this book captured the nation’s attention and reverberated through the medical and general cultures. In a period in which medical professionals spoke of advanced illness only in euphemisms or oblique whispered comments, here was a doctor who actually talked with people about their illness and, more radically still, carefully listened to what they had to say. While during the last hours of life most doctors would give enough morphine to keep patients from dying in agony, fears of raising eyebrows among colleagues kept many from giving their dying patients enough medication to be as comfortable as possible for the months they had left to live.Įlisabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying challenged the authoritarian decorum and puritanism of the day. In addition to the death-defying prowess and prestige that distinguished the most successful doctors, peer pressure contributed to widespread neglect of people’s pain. Doctors informed patients of the decisions they had made and patients accepted those decisions. A patient’s values, preferences, and priorities carried little weight. The medical culture of the era was highly authoritarian. ![]() Admitting that a person’s pain was getting worse might mean admitting that his or her disease was getting worse. It was also due to the conspiratorial, sunny pretense that doctors, patients, and their families maintained. This was only partly due to the fact that doctors were poorly trained in the management of pain and other symptoms. It was common at the time for doctors to woefully undertreat seriously ill patients’ pain to the (often needlessly) bitter end. Physician culture epitomized the never-say-die stance, but doctors were not the only ones to maintain this pretense: sick people and their families all too readily colluded to avoid talking about dying. In the 1950s and 1960s doctors rarely admitted when treatments weren’t working and commonly failed to tell patients when further treatments would do more harm than good. In this culture, the best doctors were the ones who could always find another treatment to forestall death. The sense was that medical science might soon be able to arrest aging and (subconsciously at least) possibly conquer death itself. Disease was increasingly seen as a problem to be solved. Cures for hitherto lethal conditions such as pneumonia, sepsis, kidney failure, and severe trauma had become commonplace. Startling breakthroughs in physics, chemistry, engineering, and-to most people most important-medicine were occurring almost daily. ![]() A hopeful attitude in the face of adversity seemed intrinsically virtuous, part of the American way.Īnd there were good reasons to be optimistic. Having endured the Great Depression, two world wars, and the Korean War, invincibility and perseverance were parts of the can-do American persona. “In the post–World War II era, as with every other aspect of social life, optimism and defiance pervaded America’s orientation to illness. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the Five Stages of Grief™Įxcerpt From: “On Death and Dying” by Dr. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |