Confronting Death in Medicine: End-Of-Life Care Part 1

1/18/23. - The recent COVID-19 pandemic has further illuminated the importance of end-of-life care discussions between physicians and patients' families, with particular considerations toward the balance of the medical and deeply personal dimensions of the event of death. To begin to reconcile the question of how physicians should confront the concept of death in medicine, I review important end-of-life vocabulary as well as the history of right-to-die movements including Dr. Jack Kevorkian's advocacy and the case of Teri Schiavo.