It seems as if witnessing aggressive, life-prolonging care actually makes people more likely to want it for themselves -- even with all its miseries and ultimate failure -- than they would if they hadn't witnessed it. That's a puzzle. What might be going on?

The first principle of palliative medicine is to relieve the pain and other symptoms that burden people living with serious illness -- in short, to help people feel better.

This latest study reveals not only abject failure, but lost ground as well. It's up to the people -- those approaching the end of life and those who love them -- to prevent medical habit from stealing a peaceful death.

What do health care providers do when patients, families or other surrogate decision-makers talk of miracles or are waiting for one? It depends.

Sadly, informed consent and shared decision-making, the twin pillars of patient-centered health care, aren't the rock-solid structures we would hope for. That's the lesson of a new study in the Journal of Intensive Care Medicine.

One big misnomer in our culture is that doctors (solely) develop a patient's plan of care. No. No. No. This could not be farther from the truth! Patients have a real responsibility to be fully engaged in the development (and revision) of a plan of care.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Fighting stage-four ovarian cancer, Carol Delzatto has more doctor appointments than she cares to count. But this day, s...

Because of our exposure to and understanding of how people die, physicians, at least in my experience, tend to deal with death differently than those outside of the profession.

How do we get doctors to honor our wishes at the end of life? Most recommend preparing an advance directive, and I'm no exception. These documents are not infallible, but they are the best things we've got going for us when we can't speak for ourselves.

ASCO's admonition to avoid ineffective treatment is unlikely to constrain the use of chemotherapy in advanced cancer significantly, because although it's good advice, it's difficult to put into practice.

On the one hand, we may be able to sympathize with doctors' reluctance to be the bearers of bad news, including the reality of imminent death. On the other hand, there may be some real negative consequences that result from their reticence.

It may sound peculiar, but there are some very exciting things happening where death is concerned in America. The momentum of change in how we view and respond to death is building in many sectors of society as we transform our culture of death.

I am sometimes asked if it is difficult to be a hospice volunteer, to get to know someone only to have them pass away. The short answer is no. It is rewarding, transformative and life-affirming.

Dr. David Casarett, chief medical officer at Penn Wissahickon Hospice, says there are some conversations that even the most seasoned doctors dread -- ...

Any industry that has regulations -- ours has plenty and rightly so -- will have people and institutions that flout those regulations.

I believe that he should actually be thanked because Dr. Kevorkian raised the awareness that we don't do dying well, particularly when people are suffering and in physical pain.