People I (Mostly) Admire

Does Death Have to Be a Death Sentence? (Update)

11 snips
May 31, 2025
B.J. Miller, a palliative-care physician and President at Mettle Health, redefines our approach to dying by advocating for a life-affirming perspective. He discusses the need for death education in schools, highlighting the importance of understanding mortality. The conversation contrasts dying in a hospital versus a compassionate hospice setting, emphasizing quality of life over aggressive treatment. Miller also reflects on personal resilience after trauma and the emotional complexities surrounding end-of-life care, promoting a dignified, authentic approach to death.
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INSIGHT

Teach Death Early in Schools

  • Death education should start early, like sex education, because death is a natural, pervasive phenomenon.
  • Children intuitively understand and process death with support, showing innate empathy and coping skills.
INSIGHT

Medicalizing Death Problems

  • Modern medicine medicalizes death, sidelining natural death and turning it into a problem to fix.
  • This causes people to miss essential existential and spiritual conversations about death until it's too late.
INSIGHT

Trade-off Between Time and Quality

  • The conventional death process involves relentless, sometimes futile treatments that diminish quality of life.
  • People trade meaningful life moments for marginal lifespan gains, which is a difficult bargain.
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