US health care: the unwinnable war against death

Direct Engagement With Communities and Interprofessional Learning to Factor Culture Into End-of-Life Health Care Delivery

Aging patients with advanced or terminal illnesses or at the end of their lives become highly vulnerable when their cultural needs-in terms of ethnic habits, religious beliefs, and language-are unmet. Cultural diversity should be taken into account during palliative care delivery (i.e., noncurative, supportive care during advanced illness or at the end of life). Providers and systems deliver disparate palliative care to diverse patients. I present 2 strategies to improve how culturally diverse populations are served during advanced illness: (1) health service provider assessment of local populations to understand service populations' cultural needs and guide services and policy; and (2) interprofessional education to improve multicultural understanding among the health care workforce.

Social, Economic, and Political Issues Affecting End-of-Life Care

For many decades, Americans showed a preference for delaying death through a technological imperative that often created challenges for nurses in caring for dying patients and their families. Because of their vast knowledge of health and healing, and their proximity to patients' bedsides, nurses are often well positioned to advocate for healthcare reform and legislation to improve end-of-life care. This article provides an overview of the social, economic, and political factors that are shaping end-of-life care in the United States. First, historical perspectives on end-of-life care are presented to enhance understanding of why some clinicians and patients seem to resist change to current practices. Second, end of care issues related to advanced technology utilization, societal expectations of care, clinical practices, financial incentives, palliative care services, and policy reforms are discussed. Finally, future recommendations are provided to encourage nurses and other healthcare providers to improve care for individuals facing end-of-life care decisions.

Death: a foe to be conquered? Questioning the paradigm

There are few certainties in life-death is one of them. Yet death is often thought of today as the 'loss of the battle' against illness, where in traditional societies it was the natural, meaningful, end to life. Medical knowledge and technologies have extended the possibilities of medical care and increased our life span. People living in most developed countries today can expect to survive to an advanced age and die in hospital rather than at home as in the past. Owing to these and other historical, cultural and social factors, our views on death have been skewed. Medical technology provides an arsenal of weapons to launch against death and the 'war against disease' has entrenched itself in medical philosophy. We now primarily experience death through the lens of a camera. Representations of 'death as spectacle' distort our perceptions and leave us ill-prepared for the reality. Additionally, death as a natural consequence of life has become much less visible than it was in the past due to our longer life expectancies and lack of infectious disease. The continued thrust for treatment, wedded with a failure to recognise the dying process, can rob individuals of a peaceful, dignified death. Progress being made in Advance Care Planning and palliative care is limited by the existing paradigm of death as a 'foe to be conquered'. It is time for a shift in this paradigm.