That death comes for us all is an obvious fact of life. What is less obvious, however, is that our approach to death—as both individuals and societies—may enhance the value it provides to life. This is what we explored in #34 of LtD with Professor Seamus O’Mahony.
Learning to Die on Spotify:
Seamus is a doctor and a prize-winning author. He worked for many years in the NHS, returning to his native city of Cork in 2001, where he was a gastroenterologist and clinical professor until February 2020. His first book The Way We Die Now won the British Medical Association’s council chair’s choice award in 2017.
He is a regular contributor to the Dublin Review of Books and the Medical Independent. He has written also for The Observer, the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, and the Saturday Evening Post. He is a member of the Lancet commission on “The Value of Death” and is visiting professor at the Centre for the Humanities and Health at King’s College London.
In this episode, we discuss his involvement in producing a fascinating new report by a Lancet Commission on the Value of Death: bringing death back into life. (The Lancet is the top medical journal in the world with an impact factor of 79.) You can read the entire report here (50 pages) for free https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02314-X/fulltext
[ Here is a short summary video from the Lancet (7 mins) ]
Books by Prof Seamus O’Mahony:
The Way We Die Now here https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Die-Now-Medicines/dp/1250112796
Can Medicine be Cured? (2019) https://www.amazon.com.au/Can-Medicine-Cured-Corruption-Profession-ebook/dp/B07DKKVBL4
The Ministry of Bodies was published by Head of Zeus in (March 2021) https://www.amazon.com/Ministry-Bodies-Death-Modern-Hospital/dp/1838931929
Key points we discuss and useful links:
The global commission was multidisciplinary in many ways including religious background, education, profession, and geographical location.
The fear of death has been exacerbated by Covid-19
The world is increasingly becoming devoid of meaning, we are disconnected, and hyper-scientific.
Yuval Noah Harari https://www.ynharari.com/
Cosmic Impiety by Bertrand Russell
Global imbalance of health and medicine
Equity, justice, and fairness
Biogerontology
The increase between rich and poor and access to health and medicine
Life expectancy has been reduced in the United States and stagnant in the UK.
Compression of Morbidity Theory
Dying in the ICU in India is a status symbol
Medical care is a cause of bankruptcy
God is Dead (Nietzsche) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead
Michael Pollan on https://michaelpollan.com/
Elysium -the movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film
Robert McNamara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara
Ivan Illich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich
What is biogerontology: Rattan SIS. Biogerontology: research status, challenges and opportunities. Acta Biomed. 2018 Jun 7;89(2):291-301. doi: 10.23750/abm.v89i2.7403. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6179011/
Michael Marmot-The status syndrome https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/status-syndrome-9781408872680/
Compression of Morbidity Theory https://palliative.stanford.edu/overview-of-palliative-care/compression-of-morbidity-theory/
A confession by Leo Tolstoy, full free audiobook here
Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland
The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian C. Muraresku
Please find an Illuminated Understanding of this all-important topic via these sites:
http://easydeathbook.com/purpose.asp What Death Requires of Us
http://deathanddyingwisdom.com
http://beezone.com/wide-stacks-many-topics/death_message.html Death as the Constant Message of Life
http://beezone.com/whats-new The Dark Force That Patterns & Controls our dreadful politics
Also http://dabase.org/p9rightness.htm