A good death

doi:10.1136/bmj.320.7228.129

BMJ 2000;320:129-130 ( 15 January )

Editorials

A good death

An important aim for health services and for us all

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The art of living well and dying well are one.

Epicurus

Death is one of the attributes you were created with; death is part of you. Your life's continual task is to build your death.

Montaigne

Are you ready to die? If not, then you might begin some preparation. Every BMJ reader will die this century, and death isconstantly beside us. Montaigne urged, "One should be ever bootedand spurred and ready to depart." Yet that has not been the attitudeof the past 50 years, and modern medicine may even have had thehubris to suggest implicitly, if not explicitly, that it coulddefeat death.¹ If death is seen as a failure rather than asan important part of life then individuals are diverted from preparingfor it and medicine does not give the attention it should to helpingpeople die a good death. We need a new approach . . . [Full text of this article]

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