The Lost Art of Dying (with Dr. Lydia Dugdale)
Curtis and guest Dr. Lydia Dugdale talk about life and death issues (literally) that affect every single human being. How do we face death? How can we die well? What are the cultural and medical forces that are leading so many to die poorly? Why are the practices of physican-assisted suicide and euthanasia gaining momentum and acceptance – and why has the Christian pro-life movement missed the deep connection between those practices and abortion?
Dr. Lydia Dugdale is a professor at the Columbia University Medical School and a national leader in medical ethics. She is the author of The Lost Art of Dying.
SHOW NOTES:
Free PDF download of The Lost Art of Dying study guide.
A pilot project in NYC that provides end-of-life resources for church leaders.
An excellent compilation of Christian writing on euthanasia and related end of life issues.
Coverage about Canada’s euthanasia industry in Plough Magazine and the New Atlantis.
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Valuable content in this podcast. Thank you
You’re welcome, Eric – and thanks for joining in the conversation!
Terrific podcast. My wife and I are working through the estate planning process and seeking to include provisions in the paperwork to assure, as best we can, peaceful and natural deaths. Not easy. In a Bible study group I’m in made up of well-seasoned men, we are currently including in our prayers a member who is terminal. Hard to know what to pray for. While I agree with your linking of abortion and end-of-life issues, I would urge caution as to the implementation of bans on the former. To that end, I prayerfully suggest your reading Fintan O’Toole’s book We Don’t Know Ourselves. It is a personal history of Ireland during his growing up (1958 – Present). It includes a discussion on that country’s ban on abortion and its implications for Irish women, children, and ultimately the Catholic Church. A cautionary tale. This suggestion is offered in love. Whether you follow it or not, warm best wishes from your backsliding, scuffed-up brother in Christ.
Thanks Joseph. Much more important to me than what is the optimal public policy position on end of life regulation is the Christian moral and spiritual imagination on approaching death.
I so appreciated Dr. Dugdale’s very practical and frontline approach to life and death issues. May I highly recommend her book,’The Lost Art of Dying’. Every concise chapter clarifies many of the everyday challenges family and friends painstaking deal with while supporting one through the final moments of life. Finitude, community and fear are but a few of the questions answered in the book. The hope Dr. Dugdale shares demystifies and brings strength to all who are mortal. Great book, great interview!
Thanks Phillip – it’s a great resource indeed!
I liked the part where she talked about a doctor patient relationship in contrast to just being a provider. Technically, a doctor is overqualified assist in suicide or end someone’s life as discussed in the podcast. But the public is not looking for an executioner or marine to end their life. To some extent, doctors have taken over some priestly functions. Doctors prescribe behaviors and treatments and there is an ethical role and expectation wrapped into the identity. Society wants clergy to bless gay marriages. Society wants doctors to bless suicide and euthanasia. Just giving Curtis something to discuss with his daughter as it does raise the question: What does it mean to be a Christian doctor and what are the implications for your identity and behavior?
Hi Peter – great point about how society expects doctors to be the “secular priest.” But modern health systems also don’t even give doctors the time with patients (much less the training) to adequately play this role.
I lost my mother when I was 19 years old from complications after brain tumor surgery and its affected me profoundly. My sister and I were the ones who had to make the determination to take her off life support. Since my sister was only 14 at the time, it was pretty much up to me. Very heavy decision for a 19 year old kid. A lot of anxiety and control issues stem from losing my mother at such a young age. It definitely created the “the sky can fall at any minute” mentality in me that I still struggle with. I am terrified of losing my wife and my two daughters, even though I know we will all be with Christ in paradise. Thank you for this episode, Curtis and Lydia.
Thanks for sharing this, Kelly – that’s a heavy load to carry indeed.
Often, I confess, that I see the title of the podcast and think “Oh that does not sound very appealing.” However, I always do listen and, without exception, I ALWAYS learn and grow, and am inspired to pursue more on the subject. There is always something deeper and more profound, than initially occurs, and the challenge to my thinking is rewarding and appreciated! In this episode, I found the three prongs of “control, avoidance of suffering, and the autonomous self” to be the three legged stool of not just this subject, but so many others. The “my body, my choice” philosophy, when thought of in terms of these three concepts, applies to so much of what our culture, to their detriment, has come to adopt. I have often referred to this as the “American Idol” fantasy. The belief that just because one has worked hard and wants something soooooooo badly, one should be able to receive their wish. We have horribly misled people into thinking that whatever they desire, they should have—they should be in control, not have to suffer to obtain this ideal of theirs, and it is their right to have. I can see how this applies to our gender confusion as another example–if this is what I want, I should be given the right to have it, and without having to suffer to get it or live short of it. Unfortunately, as well, we have set up the perfect system for increasing craving and the potential for disappointment / anger/ depression—behaviorally we are wired, that when something is perceived to be “within reach,” the craving becomes even more powerfully ingrained, and when the ideal is not achieved–the disappointment and anger are so much more pronounced. We just cannot always have what we want, and the loss of this reality has its tentacles in many spheres of cultural life, to the detriment of our mental health, relationships, and civic life, among others.
Thanks for your thoughts, Tracy. I think our fear of loss is spot on the key spiritual issue in play!
This was a really good podcast. Thank you Curtis for addressing an important topic. As a 62 year old, I am thinking more and more about getting old and how I do and do NOT want to deal with aging. It was rather scary about Canada’s system.
I read an article in the Atlantic Magazine just the other day, reprinted from 2014 called, “Why I Hope to Die at 75”. The gist was that after he hits 75 he will only want Palliative care, not even antibiotics. It was something I may consider. I have seen both my mother and mother-in-law live for some 10 years+ (mother-in-law is still living at 96)not being able to communicate or care for themselves and I sure don’t want that. But I don’t think I could ever ask someone to take my life, unless the pain was unbearable.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Nancy. I felt like I didn’t quite nail this point in the podcast, but I believe deeply that there is still meaning in our life even when we are primarily recipients of others’ loving care of us, even when we are helpless. After all, during our life, we believe our actual status before God is that we are utterly helpless, utterly dependent. What are we saying about the actual state of our heart when we make decisions that proclaim in effect that such a state is utterly repugnant and intolerable to us.
I am an internal medicine physician in Oregon and have long felt that my Church community was lacking in understanding around these issues…all the talk about “death panels” during the Palin candidacy revealed how under-educated many were about the medical complexities of dying in the U.S., and that rejecting intervention is not inconsistent with kingdom living. Hearing about Dr. Dugdale’s research into that topic was so encouraging, and I have downloaded her book and can’t wait to listen! We need more proctored discussions on this topic in church communities around the country.
Dr. Dugdale was a speaker at CBHD’s annual onference several years ago. The theme was end of life. Her talk was fantastic, my first exposure to the ars moriendi. I have since read both of her books and recommend them.
Thank you for this podcast. Both of my parents have passed away following long illnesses in the past decade, and I was always struck by the difference in their approaches to their deaths. My mother had what I believed to be a robust faith but yet her final years were largely filled with struggle trying to hang onto life with everything she could muster before passing in 2014. My father had walked away from his faith when I was in college, but yet had a much more peaceful death from prostate cancer in 2018, having made the decision with his second wife to enter hospice care a few months earlier. It always seemed a little strange to me that I was more drawn to my dad’s death rather than my mom’s, but Dr. Dugdale was able to provide some clarity and thoughtful insight into this conundrum.
While I was listening, I also wondered if there was a parallel between the misconceptions regarding death that were discussed in this podcast and how many evangelicals resisted the COVID-19 precautions that were in place at the height of the pandemic. In both cases I sensed a lot of grasping at things as opposed to faithful and prayerful consideration of what was happening. As someone who actively tried to encourage Christians to follow the protocols and accept the vaccines when they became available, did you see this parallel? Thank you for work in this area. It was one of the reasons I decided to try the Good Faith Podcast in the first place, and I am very happy to have done so!