The Economist reviews Atul Gawande’s forthcoming book on end-of-life care. A fascinating detail:
Many people fear that a doctor who does not try everything possible has abandoned his patients, and they will die earlier as a result. Surprisingly, however, the try-everything approach appears not even to offer a longer life. Multiple studies have shown that patients entering hospice care, which usually means abandoning attempts at a cure, live at least as long as those receiving traditional care. A startling study in 2010 found that patients with advanced lung cancer who saw a specialist in palliative care as well as receiving the usual oncological treatment stopped chemotherapy sooner, entered a hospice earlier, suffered less—and lived 25% longer than comparable patients who received only the standard care. “If end-of-life discussions were an experimental drug, the FDA [an American regulatory body] would approve it,” says Dr Gawande. In life, as in all stories, he writes, “endings matter”.
The Dish recently tackled related issues.
The Dish 