In “How We Die,” published in 1994, Dr. Nuland described in frank detail the processes by which life succumbs to violence, disease or old age. Arriving amid an intense moral and legal debate over physician-assisted suicide — perhaps the ultimate manifestation of the concept of a dignified death — the book tapped into a deep national desire to understand the nature of dying....
Dr. Nuland wrote that his intention was to demythologize death, making it more familiar and therefore less frightening, so that the dying might approach decisions regarding their care with greater knowledge and more reasonable expectations....
Beyond its descriptions of ruptured embolisms, spreading metastases and bodily functions run amok, “How We Die” was a criticism of a medical profession that saw death as an enemy to be engaged, frequently beyond the point of futility.....
March 5, 2014
Author of "How We Die" dies.
Sherwin B. Nuland was 83.
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23 comments:
Little known fact: His daughter is Victoria Nuland, the Asst Secretary of State, of "F*ck the EU" fame.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Author of "How We Die" dies.
And is now pissed he can't write about it,...
"How We Die"
Sitting in a car, listening to music with your friends - waiting for one of them to get gum from the store - when a white guy pulls up,...
Morphine. Think morphine. You had better, because too often the docs do not unless prodded.
And someone blows the white guy away? Vice versa? Or the white guy panics at the sight of the black people and drives into the path of a semi?
In my scenario, the whites and blacks blaze away at each other, slaughtering bystanders instead. Nobody can say what started it. Or they won't say. Or they don't remember.
I bet Crack lives next door to Spike Lee.
Nuland was a typical east coast liberal hero. Doctors have been dealing with death for centuries and millenia. Then the lawyers got into it and things changed.
In Sir William Osler's famous textbook "The Principles and Practice of Medicine," 1895 edition, he wrote, "pneumonia may well be called the friend of the aged." By the third edition, as he was feeling his own old age, he wrote, "Pneumonia is the special enemy of old age."
I wonder if Nuland had second thoughts.
-- How did he die?
-- Your contact? Not well.
I bet Crack lives next door to Spike Lee.
What a great man.
The old liberal and progressive jewish dominated media "narrative" of blacks as victims of criminal activities of other races - a narrative Crack echoes - has to give way to the truth.
Within the US population, a subpopulation of young black males that is 3% commits 60% of the armed robberies, burglaries and almost 50% of the stranger on stranger murders and rapes in America.
Within that 3% subpopulation, most people can discern and winnow down the threat of young black males to a 1-2% share of the population pretty readily. Including other blacks. And that is not bigotry, but 100s of millions of years of evolution shaping organisms to be in tune to the threats to their safety intheir environment.
The old 60s narrative though, maintains there is no differences whatsoever in the nature of races, genders, age groups - and any discrepencies are "society's fault". And 100 black teens shooting and raping 1,000 whites hispanics and asians simply signals a lack of opportunity so blacks need more free stuff given them. But one white, asian, or hispanic shooting a black is a horror beyond belief, and must be racism because every white, asian, hispanic has all the privilege and opportunity in the world!
Maybe he should have written How we live forever.
David,
"In my scenario,…."
Which, I imagine, is like saying "in my truth" when there aren't multiples but only one - Michael Dunn.
Ipso Fatso,
"I bet Crack lives next door to Spike Lee."
Would that mean my house is getting attacked in what whites keep insisting is nice non-racist America?
Cedarford,
Don't you have a rock, to crawl back under, somewhere?
His daughter said he was not afraid of dying....but he had constructed a great life and wasn't ready to quit it either.
Even though he wrote the book, he couldn't have it both ways.
Like the rest of us. A biologic certitude.
"How We Die"
Walking down the street I decide not to cross to the other side when two young black guys approach so I don't offend……I die a non racist.
There is another way to get to the point where death is moot: Embrace the Savior, Jesus Christ.
It's my observation that......Death usually happens when you stop getting out of bed.
Death is the enemy. Fraternization with the enemy is offensive to the hometeam. Pretending doing so makes one noble is the ultimate Bullshit.
Victoria Nuland, she of the Benghazi Talking Points.....
Like much of DC royalty, she is in power elites that cross over ideological divides. Her husband is arch-Neocon Robert Kagan. Power matters more than ideology.
The Crack MC and Cedarford, two sides of the same coin.
I'd ask my 89-year-old mother, how you feeling?
Like a clock winding down, she'd say.
Right up until she drowned in her own fluids.
To be honest, Crack, I missed the Michael Dunn reference in your short vignette of the white guy in the car. That will show you the difference in consciousness. I was thinking "hey, Crack did not supply the ending," which in your mind was not necessary because the ending was already known.
I was supplying endings. I did say "in my scenario" which is different than saying "in another scenario." Not a conscious choice from the front of the brain but a choice nevertheless. So I guess I was articulating my truth, which is that the bystanders get shot. I don't like that.
Of course bystanders get shot by directed fire as well as misdirected fire. Which brings us to Michael Dunn. Only one person in that incident shot at someone else.
In my immediate world (my house, my car, my workplace) a bystander getting shot is almost entirely theoretical. It's so rare it's not a worry. Not that it can't happen, but if it does it's completely unexpected.
Not so elsewhere, including some very nearby elsewheres. And the fact that I can see these places as "elsewheres" is part of the problem. Whites do see it that way far too much. "We" are here. "They" are elsewhere. Eliminating that boundary is too often temporary. It's always easy to step back to the other side.
For that I am sorry.
I read "How We Die" when it came out and found it extremely valuable. Nuland was spot on with his observation that many doctors lose interest in their patients when it becomes clear they can't solve the puzzle any more. If you have a doctor like that, which is likely, you've got to be prepared to handle the last stage on your own, possibly with the help of hospice care. Your doctor may well be unwilling/unable to face the issue clearly enough to give you the authorization you need for hospice, so you may be the one who has to figure out when death has become inevitable. Then your doctor may require lots of tactful nudging while you make it clear to him that he, poor lamb, is not to blame for the inescapable fact of mortality.
The hospice people, on the other hand, generally understand perfectly. They can be incredibly helpful.
I'm disappointed to find that Victoria Nuland is the author's doctor.
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