Facing Death, Essay Example

The fear of losing someone you deeply love to a pre-existing terminal illness can be very painful. However, the feeling of ‘not letting go’ that one has when they are aware of the impending death is also profoundly saddening and sorrowful.  ‘Facing Death’ documentary tries to explain the classical dilemmas that people face when they postpone the inevitable versus denying the unavoidable. The complex question that often arises is whether or not the close family members should extend the life of the patient when the patient is in a vegetative state.

Predominantly, the emerging theme of the documentary is how modern medicine has become both a blessing and a curse in disguise. Deciding to keep the terminally ill patients alive will usually result in further aggressive treatments and addition expenses. Moreover, the patients will often experience weeks or months of physical pain, emotional distress and misery as a result of further treatments. Health Insurance costs are also rising in US, which means there is significant pressure on health practitioners to reduce the billions spent on end of life care.

It is clear from the film that doctors are faced with the hard choice of doing more medically in the face of inevitable death. If they do nothing, then death will come sooner to the patients. At the bone marrow transplant unit, Dr. Keren asserts that there are instances she regrets not stopping further treatment earlier since the patient suffered unreasonably. Even with the failure of advance medicine and technological innovation in improving the patient’scondition, no one wants to accept the impending mortality. The courage showed by the typically middle-aged patients to keep on going and experimenting new procedure tells us, “Nobody wants to die, let alone die badly.”