Excerpt
“Seven weeks after my dad went to the emergency room, he died. Only later did we realize that his earlier symptoms – back pain and a bad cough – were actually signs of adenocarcinoma, not just aging.
‘We don’t know when the end of someone’s life actually begins,’ said Dr. Scott Halpern, a physician and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in palliative and hospice care. He trains clinicians to guide patients and their families through difficult conversations and consequential, end-of-life decisions.
‘Good care for the dying must start earlier,’ he added.”
Read more at Psychology Today.