Dying patients hungry for someone to listen

Too often we treat death like we treat sex. We know it is there, but we don’t talk about it.

When Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, author of On Death and Dying, first started her studies in this area, she recalls visiting doctors and nurses in a Chicago hospital and asking if she could interview their dying patients.

“We don’t have any,” they said. Or, “You can’t talk to them because you’ll upset them if you as them any questions.”

When she finally got to the patients, over the opposition of the medical staff, she found they were hungry for someone to talk to and for someone who would listen to them.

Even though it is now “in” to be able to talk about dying, the reality is most of us don’t expect it to happen to our loved ones or to us.

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