What Makes a Good Death? Karen Steinhauser, Rasa Mikelyte, Edison Vidal
episode
GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast
48 min
3 speakers
4 chapters
transcribed 10 hours ago
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What is a “good death” and why is the concept controversial?
This episode of the Jerry Pal podcast is CME eligible.
To claim credit, please go to the CME tab on jerrypal.org.
Welcome to the Jerry Powell Podcast. This is Eric Widera. This is Alex Smith. And Alex, we're going to be talking about a good death today. Good death. Good death. Who do we have to talk about? We are
so pleased to welcome back Karen Steinhauser, who is a social scientist, professor of population health sciences and medicine at Duke, and a health scientist at the Durham VA Health System. Karen, welcome back to the Jerry Powell Podcast.
Thank you. Glad to be here.
And we're delighted to welcome Edison Vidal, who's a geriatrician and palliative care physician and professor of geriatric medicine at the medical school Botucatu at Sao Paulo State University in Brazil. Edison, welcome to GeriPAL.
Wonderful. Thank you.
And Rosa Michelite, who is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Kent in the UK. Rosa.
Thank you for
having
me.
Rosa, welcome to the GeriPAL podcast.
Thank you for having me. We got a lot to cover on the good death. Maybe we could define what a good death is. Can we define what a good death is? Is it useful concept at all? Maybe we'll go back a little bit into history about this concept and what the future looks like. But before we get into all of that, Edison, I think you have a song request for Alex.
Yes, pretty much. I'd like Waters of March. Why Waters of March? So there are several layers for this response, and I'll choose just the first two. But if you want, I can tell you more later on. So first, this is one of the most beloved Brazilian songs, and it's around the flow of life. So the singer... speaks about several random objects and things that pass in life. And death is one of them, and it just passes by, by death. So it integrates death and life as they are intertwined in real life. That's one of the beauties. The other one, that's an example of a cross-cultural adaptation. It's not a literal translation. There's a Brazilian version. The song was originally written in Brazil. by Antonio Carlos Jobim, who spent a significant time of his life living in the US, who made a brilliant partnership with Frank Sinatra.
They have a wonderful CD about this work. And so there are some terms in the song that they exist in English, but not in Portuguese and vice versa. So it's a beautiful song, yeah.
And I love this because we're going to also be talking about your paper on a good death, looking at two different countries. We'll get into the topic of that, but also how we think about a good death from a cross-cultural perspective. Alex, are you going to do the Portuguese
version? I am not doing the Portuguese version. Thought about it. I tried, but the words just come fast and furious. So I'm going to sing this one in English. I'm sorry, Edison. And for those of you listening to the audio-only podcast, you get my son Ren on guitar and bass, and he did the Bassanova version. For those of you watching on YouTube, you get me doing this in what my kids describe as Bassanova meets Green Day. A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road It's the rest of the stump, it's a little alone It's a sliver of glass, it is life, it's the sun It is night, it is death, it's a trap, it's a gun The oak when it blooms, a fox in the brush A knot in the wood, a song of a thrush The will of the wind, a cliff, a fall, a scratch, a lump, it is nothing at all.
It's the wind blowing free, it's the end of the slope, it's a beam, it's a void, it's a hunch, it's a hope. And the riverbank talks of the waters of March, it's the end of the strain, it's the joy in your heart.
That was great. Alex and I are actually going to Sao Paulo in April.
We are. Thanks to Edison.
Thank you for inviting us. Sao Paulo Geriatrics and Gerontology Congress in April.
People should come down and join.
Alex, are you going to sing the Portuguese version then?
We'll see. We'll see. No
problem. So I'm going to turn back time. Alex, we actually did a podcast on a good death. Do you remember? Yeah, I don't. We had Vijay Parakoyal on. Yeah.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is a “good death” and why is the concept controversial?
0:00–25:17
2
How did Karen Steinhauser’s 2000 JAMA study shape our understanding of end‑of‑life priorities?
25:17–38:31
3
What factors did the VA‑funded study identify as most important to patients, families, and clinicians?
38:31–46:07
4
Why do patients rank mental clarity and peace as highly as pain control at the end of life?
46:07–48:48
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast
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