Medicine: A Better Way of Dying

Hospices help ease the pain and fear of the terminally ill

For many months, the 35-year-old man has been receiving chemicals to halt his cancer. But now, emaciated and racked with pain, he can no longer tolerate the powerful drugs. Everyone, including the patient, realizes that the chemotherapy is not working. The cancer has spread, and treatment is being stopped. Even before the notion of death can be fully accepted by the man or by his family, a hospital official calls aside the patient's wife. He tells her that since the hospital can do...

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