Ep. 123 Goals and Wishes for 2018: Let’s “Be Good at Death”

Hear my far-reaching dreams and ideas for changing the way people die in the U.S. in 2018.

In this episode I talk about some of my own personal goals for the New Year and then discuss a list of ideas for ways in which we need to improve all aspects of the end of life. Get some inspiration for steps you can take within your own community and in your own personal life to “Be Good at Death.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

I’ve started a new year-long reading group called A Year of Reading Dangerously for 2018! We’ll be exploring death and the afterlife through books that hopefully will inspire us and stretch our boundaries. Sign up to receive a monthly email with the book selection for the month and a downloadable reader’s discussion guide. Join the fun!

Sign up here.

A HUGE thank-you to my latest supporters: Claire Turner and Dr. Leslie Robinson. Your contribution is greatly appreciated as it helps defray the costs of producing and broadcasting this podcast and the End-of-Life University Interview Series, but it also provides me with much-needed emotional and spiritual support! To donate as little as $1 per month go to Patreon.com/eolu.

There is a new pledge level on Patreon-the Platinum level-where for a donation of $5 per month you’ll receive replays of ALL of the End-of-Life University Interviews for 2018. So check it out now!

FEATURE PRESENTATION:

What we need to do to “Be Good at Death” in 2018″:

Policy Level changes needed:
1. Improve reimbursement for Palliative Care
2. Stabilize and improve reimbursement for Hospice Care
3. Establish a system for paying family caregivers
Medical System changes needed
1. Integrate Palliative Care into Primary Care and therefore …
2. Increase home-based palliative services
3. Rank hospitals according to the quality of end-of-life care provided (based on an article by Dr. Haider Warraich from Duke University). Dr. Warraich’s criteria for this ranking include:
  1. “percentage of patients with a documented health care proxy
  2. percentage of patients who receive heroic measures like cardiopulmonary resuscitation or cardiac defibrillation
  3. appropriate use of hospice and palliative care
  4. the likelihood of a family recommending the hospital for end-of-life care
  5. whether patients’ location of death was concordant with the place in which they had wanted to die
  6. availability of around-the-clock spiritual resources
  7. the training the medical team receives for dealing with the medical and psychosocial issues that arise when death is imminent” ((Thank you Dr. Warraich for this fabulous idea!))
Medical Education changes needed
1. Train all medical providers in palliative care (at least a one-month rotation) regardless of specialty
2. All medical students work with dying patients in at least one rotation
3. Teach better conversational and listening skills to medical providers
4. Help medical providers process their own fears and biases toward death and their repressed grief
Community changes needed
1. Create adjuncts to hospice care:
  1. Non-medical social hospices
  2. All-volunteer non-medical hospice services
  3. Hospices train volunteer death doulas to augment the care currently being provided
2. Establish Caregiver Education programs in the community
3. Create a No One Dies Alone program in hospitals and nursing facilities
4. Improve community education about death and dying through:
  1. Death Cafes
  2. Book clubs
  3. Workshops
  4. Advance Directive courses
  5. Death and Dying classes for high schools, colleges and universities
Individual changes needed:
1. Continually work on our own fear and resistance to death
2. Explore our unhealed and repressed grief (consider travel to help with grief)
3. Keep learning about death
4. Talk about death with others in our social circle
5. Make death part of your every day life
6. Teach children about death and help them navigate through loss and grief

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Come back each Monday for a new episode! Visit Patreon.com/eolu if you’d like to become a supporter and leave a review on iTunes if you enjoy this podcast.

Until next week:

Face Your Fear BE Ready Love Your Life