Dying Alone

Dying

Professor Hinton is a psychiatrist who has made careful studies of the reactions of dying people, the awareness they have that they are dying, and the ways in which their doctors and nurses may help to bring them solace. His original work is deservedly much esteemed. It has lost nothing by presentation in this volume together with additional information on the circumstances, customs and attitud...

Assisted dying.

Professor Finlay is absolutely right that GPs’ opinions are vitally important in the assisted dying debate, and that it is important for the College to have a view on this issue.1 Physician-assisted suicide would involve GPs in assessing requests for assisted suicide and would also require GPs to prescribe lethal doses of medication. It would also be highly stressful for GPs, as seen in the Net...

Dying with dignity.

Communicating with the dying.

Non-verbal signals are very subtle: they are socially learnt and can be as confusing to a foreigner as an unknown language. We watch a person's face and observe slight changes of expression in the eyes or mouth. We note the making or evasion of eye contact and whether the movement is natural or forced. We unconsciously see the embarrassed wave of a hand and hear a change in the timbre of the vo...

Dying with dignity.

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