End of life: the outstanding professional debate

A twisted argument against end-of-life care http://t.co/6jQJCdotWP

— Kevin Pho, M.D. (@kevinmd) 28 d’octubre de 2014

@kevinmd’s tweet takes us to a post signed by the oncologist James Salwitz, a professional who’s very active on the internet and has his own blog: “Sunrise Rounds”. Although I feel that I've devoted a lot of attention to the issue of end of life, I have decided to choose the letter from Dr. Salwitz because it seems to me that he has managed to go straight to the point on a professional debate that we have not yet solved, nor are we close to solving.

Dr. Salwitz explains that in a workshop on pain and depression control, one of the participating general practitioners raised his hand and said: "I believe that this drift towards palliative medicine will send us back to the dark ages as we will forget to defeat disease while medical research will no longer make sense, which may be the end of modern medicine and of the way of life specific to our society." The dilemma, then, according to this colleague is crystal clear, as Dr. Salwitz says: "Either we fight with all our strength against death, injecting chemotherapy to all patients, regardless of their view on life, or we surrender to the evidence that we are mortal and we accept the Darwinian principles of species while preparing to die with dignity."