The Art of Dying

To understand what constitutes a good death we need to think beyond medicine and explore insights from the arts and social sciences. This month has seen the end of The Art of Dying, a year long programme at King's College, London, that brought together clinicians, social researchers, philosophers, historians, lawyers, theologians, and ethicists.

Hosted by the college's Department of Humanities, The Art of Dying comprised debates, lectures, conferences, exhibitions, and performances that provided a forum for leading scholars to discuss the concept of a good death and how it has changed over time and across cultures. Members of the general public, medical students, and a range of healthcare professionals were also involved, together with artists, actors, writers, musicians, classicists, linguists, and designers. Events between October 2002 and July 2003 included a season of films on dying, an exhibition by Helen Story, called Death Dresses, which used textiles to tell a non-morbid story of death, and many discussions exploring the depiction of death in music, philosophy, art, and literature. One of the best attended events was a performance of Nell Dunn's play Cancer Tales (BMJ 2003;326: 1151).

Nicholas Christakis, professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School, was one of the guest speakers. He said, “The issue of a good death is a neglected and fundamental topic. Who could argue against a good death” Dr Christakis was particularly struck by the interdisciplinary nature of the symposium, which he says benefits doctors as they “are invited to be sceptical and self critical of their own ideology and perspective.” He said, “Both the variety and consistency across time and space about the idea of a good death can and should be instructive for doctors as they think about death in medicine and their own death.”

According to Professor Irene Higginson, one of the organisers of The Art of Dying, the symposium helped to “deepen the debate about dying,” which she says was reflected in the changing nature of the discussions over the year. Professor Higginson said that the major impact of the symposium had been “to make people realise that there are many individual facets of a good death and that we should not be frightened to talk about it.”