Death Interrupted

As a lifeguard, a paramedic, and then an ER doctor, Blair Bigham found his calling: saving lives. But when he started to work in the ICU, he slowly realized that sometimes keeping people (and their hopes) alive just prolongs the suffering. He wrote a book arguing that a too-late death is just as bad as a too-early one, and that physicians and the public alike need to get better at accepting the inevitability of death sooner. As the book hit the bestseller list, Blair’s own father got diagnosed with a deadly case of pancreatic cancer. Blair’s every impulse was in direct contradiction of the book he just wrote. What should he do? And how can any of us know when to stop fighting death and when to start making peace with it?

Special thanks to Lucie Howell and Heather Haley.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Simon Adler
with help from - Alyssa Jeong Perry
Original music and sound design contributed by - Simon Adler
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and edited by - Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Books:

Blair Bigham, Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine is Complicating the Way We Die (https://zpr.io/a33mEMW64X5h)

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