With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial

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She wants us to think about what dying and death mean for others and for ourselves and take the fear and recoil out of the subject. This infuriated me because of the damage, pain and suffering the language of 'natural birth' and the doctrine of little medical intervention has caused to women and their babies.

A last resort decision surrounded by strict laws with the highest regard for the patient's autonomy, family and close ones.Nevertheless I readily commend this book as an extremely helpful aid to patients and carers and even acquaintances of those who are dying. It’s almost impossible to answer, yet people ask as though it’s a calculation of change from a pound. Man, watching your loved one suffering fucks you up for life, far more than "simple" fact of his of her death. The book starts with Sabine's story and looks particularly at the process of dying and the need for honesty at such a time.

Sometimes the stories almost moved me to tears, and I was interested to learn many things about dying and how it often follows a very recognisable pattern. It's crucial to feel that you trust and respect the voice that is telling you such sensitive stories, but With the End in Mind left me feeling frustrated, angry and suspicious. I could have done with more exploration of what death means to people of faith for the foundation of the Hospice movement was distinctly Christian. It’s based around relatable stories of the patients Mannix met in her decades working in the fields of cancer treatment and hospice care. She makes the case that we should be neither ashamed nor embarrassed to talk about dying and death but that bringing our fears into the open is a healing process in itself.This outstanding book, which was shortlisted for this year's Wellcome Book Prize and was written by a palliative care physician in the UK, describes several remarkable people she cared for at the end of their lives, their families and other loved ones, and her experiences and lessons learned during her four decades in clinical practice. I can’t agree with any of them as I thought it a well balanced, kind, considerate and helpful book which raises issues we really should be engaging with now. Interestingly centred around the time when the perspective of life and meaning are under scrutiny and question. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to everyone, as it features something we all have in common.

It is written by Kathryn Mannix, a palliative care doctor, who shares a collection of stories about some of the patients she has cared for. This, along with the problems I've noted above, left me doubting everything she said about birth and about death. Like those romantic portraits of Florence Nightingale holding her lamp aloft as she walked between beds of maimed and dying soldiers, Mannix’s aim is to shed a soft, clear light on a subject she feels is too often avoided. This was a book to take in slowly, chapter per chapter, intimate and tender story per intimate and beautifully written story. What is important is “to hold the space” – to banish our fear and shame, and create a ring of safety around the grieving family and friends where they can mourn, each in their own way.It also helps people to enjoy each day as it arises, instead of fearing a sudden and unexpected onset of dying, because usually, death approaches us gradually. If you are wired so that you think there's grandeur, learning, redemption, or whatever other "quality" in suffering except pointless pain, you are going to stand your ground and use this book to reinforce your rationalizations about why the pain (physical suffering) is unavoidable, even necessary part of human experience. She doesn't fill up the book with pages of medical jargon, but instead talks about many of the patients that she has met during the years and how her job helps them to deal with end of life care.