Doctors such as James Tulsky, MD, director of the Duke Center for Palliative Care, and Diane Meier, MD, director of the New York-based Center to Advance Palliative Care, are promoting a more sanguine acceptance of mortality. They consider dying the final stage of living—not something to stave off when it's inevitable. This acceptance, when it happens, allows families to find meaning, and sometimes even sweetness, in a loss.
It turns out that's what many terminally ill people want. Karen Steinhauser, a medical sociologist at Duke, has asked patients, families and professionals to define a "good death." Steinhauser discovered several common threads. Patients want to be free of pain. They want to be kept clean and maintain their dignity. They want to be part of a clear decision-making process. They want to feel a sense of completion to their lives. They want to give back to others. And they want to be affirmed as whole people, not just as dying patients—"to know that my story, my life mattered," Steinhauser says.
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