Author: Mark Taubert, NHS Consultant and Professor of Palliative Medicine, Cardiff, UK It can be a challenge finding data on assisted dying and euthanasia in jurisdictions where it is legal. In some areas the data is not made available, elsewhere not much is recorded or observed beyond patient demographics. Finding detail on complication rates and […]
Category: Feature
Do They Go Gently?
Authors: Dr. Benjamin Thomas, Staff Specialist in Palliative Medicine, Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, NSW, Australia. bluesky: andiyar.bsky.social Dr. Greg Barclay, Senior Staff Specialist in Palliative Medicine, Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, NSW, Australia Introduction: Voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is becoming more widespread in multiple jurisdictions around the world. Legislation is currently […]
Assisted dying in the UK – law change must be informed by robust evidence
Author: Professor Katherine E Sleeman, King’s College London, UK The UK is moving closer to legalisation of assisted dying. One of the arguments made in favour of legalisation is the limit of palliative care to resolve all suffering. Many of the speeches made in support of the Leadbeater bill (which would legalise assisted dying […]
Discrimination-driven deaths – Analysing Ontario Coroner Reports on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Author: Dr. Ramona Coelho, Family Physician; Senior Fellow of Domestic and Health Policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute; Member of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Death Review Committee; Ontario, Canada. New – Listen to this post on Spotify, read by the author: Introduction: As a family physician in Ontario, Canada, my practice largely serves marginalised groups: […]
On losing a friend and renouncing Schopenhauer
By Prof Mark Taubert, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Cardiff, UK “Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena This year, I lost a very dear friend called Yiannis. Only in his late forties, he had a rare form of bone marrow cancer. He was a successful […]
‘Best Interests’ – a label that covers many different concepts
Mike Stone Retired Non Clinical Private Individual Michael H Stone I was recently reflecting on how the UK Mental Capacity Act (MCA) has changed the way we approach decision making. I say ‘we’, as a bereaved family member, and you can read more about the events that changed my life– events that included 999 staff and my dead […]
BODIES – A Medical Humanities Conference
Author: Dr Ishminder Mangat, Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, England Bodies was the first ever medical humanities conference to take place in Bristol: it was held on Monday 26th June 2023 in the grand and imposing neo-Gothic Wills Memorial Building. For this summary article, I have tried to capture an account of […]
Medical Death Certification. Do we need medical training before medical examiners?
By Dr Pablo Millares Martin. GP Senior Partner. Whitehall Surgery, Wortley Ring Rd. Leeds, UK. E-mail: Pablo.martin@nhs.net Introduction The Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) is a very important legal document with dual functionality: to provide the information required for the registration of a death, but also to facilitate statistical comparisons of mortality causes, […]
The Palliative Times Special Festive Edition.
By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077 93 year old celebrates third resurrection. Doris (93), recently celebrated with all 24 of her next of kin after a week of not eating and drinking. ‘They keep saying I’m going […]
They told me not to go: Flat Holm Island, Wales
by Mark Taubert, Palliative Care Consultant, Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom Twitter: @ProfMarkTaubert A trip to a remote island with a derelict cholera hospital, to record a National Heritage Lottery funded audio podcast about pandemics, palliative care and isolation, inadvertently turns into an adventure. Flat Holm, or ‘Ynys Echni’, its Welsh name, is […]