Tma1

Part A

What parts, if any, doesn’t medicine play in achieving a good death?

To answer this question I hope to show my understanding of the part and limitations medicine plays in achieving this. I will give examples of how medical intervention can assisted in a good death as well as the effects it can have when administered. I will also discuss what constitutes a medicalised death.

I will begin my essay firstly by giving a basic definition of what medicine is, as described by (Google 2015) and continue with examples of both a good death and a bad death from the views of others through either social cultures, religion, their own experience of death through others around them dying as well as studies carried out through the centuries and the analysis of these.

Medicine:- The science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease.(Google 2015)

My understanding of Medicalisation is that over the years and mainly since the 19th century, human conditions especially around death and dying have been categorised as a sickness rather than the inevitable, needing medical intervention. The medicalisation of death in the UK commenced when the system for registering births and deaths was made legal through the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836 (Rugg, 1999). With medicine the emphasis is on a cure, and when death happens it can sometimes be seen as a failure.

I have asked many people since starting this module what they considered to be a “Good Death” and a “Bad Death”. After the initial shock of my direct question on a taboo subject for some, and the reassurance from myself that I was ok, in good health and not harbouring any undisclosed illnesses, the general consensus of a “good death” was for people to die in their sleep quickly and without pain preferably in their own home surrounded by their nearest and dearest. Answers on the “bad death” varied from not being able to say goodbye to their family and friends or dying alone, but the general...