Book: Dying in the Twenty-First Century

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Dying in the Twenty-First Century: Toward a New Ethical Framework for the Art of Dying Well

Dr. Lydia Dugdale, assistant professor of internal medicine

(MIT Press)

Most individuals are generally ill-equipped for dying. Today, they neither see death nor prepare for it. But this has not always been the case. In the early 15th century, the Roman Catholic Church published the Ars moriendi texts, which established prayers and practices for an art of dying. In the 21st century, physicians rely on procedures and protocols for the efficient management of hospitalized patients. How can individuals recapture an art of dying that can facilitate their dying well? In this book, physicians, philosophers, and theologians attempt to articulate a bioethical framework for dying well in a secularized, diverse society.

Contributors discuss such topics as the acceptance of human finitude; the role of hospice and palliative medicine; spiritual preparation for death; and the relationship between community and individual autonomy. They also consider special cases, including children, elderly patients with dementia, and death in the early years of the AIDS epidemic.