Ken Murray, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at USC, writes:
It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.
Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone. They’ve talked about this with their families. They want to be sure, when the time comes, that no heroic measures will happen—that they will never experience, during their last moments on earth, someone breaking their ribs in an attempt to resuscitate them with CPR (that’s what happens if CPR is done right).
The article also contains an interesting comments thread worth reading through.
Several of my friends who are in the medical profession have said similar things to me. They do not want to be put on life support or die in an intensive care unit. This surprised me at first, but with two family members recently battling cancer I can better relate to their reasoning.
I would be interested to hear what other people think about this subject, especially nurses, doctors, and hospice workers.