To hate this man who said 'cancer is the best way to die'

[Sallystyle]

Stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, it's the best way to die,' says former BMJ editor

So death from cancer is the best ... You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion.

Well, fuck him I say.

I have had friends who have almost certainly encountered 'over ambitious oncologists'. Maybe we should call them ' over optimistic, often young, oncologists.'
Both had terminal, very aggressive cancer.
Both had major surgeries, excisions, amputation ( in both cases, repeated amputations), and aggressive chemo.
One of them was young herself, with young children, the other was not so young (late sixties - still not old).
I get why the surgeon/oncologist suggested this, and why friend pushed to pursue it (young friend was very engaged in her treatment) - hope, however small - but what it ultimately meant was a devastating reduction in quality of life.

I know we should talk and think about these things more but votives so traumatic.

I've found even assembling thoughts and posting this quite upsetting. I guess that's why most of us just go for denial. I guess that's not helpful.

I found it to be a very interesting and thought provoking article. If you read it, he explains what he means. He is saying that out of all the ways you can die (and dying is the only inevitable part of life), cancer is preferable to him, because it allows time to sort things out and time with your family in a way that the alternatives don't.

If you assume you are going to die on date X, but you don't know when that date is, but you can choose between instant death with no warning, organ failure, dementia or cancer, he would choose cancer. I understand his point completely. Having seen all of those deaths in people close to me, I cautiously agree. But if I had just read the quoted title, I would think that he was a dick.

A relative was killed in an RTA. No warning, instant. The shock left us reeling and we had to guess what he wanted us to do.
A friend had organ failure. Spent her life in and out of hospital, yet her death came without warning after a very short illness and she was not conscious for most of it.
A relative had dementia. A hideous experience to endure for years when we had actually lost her many years earlier.
A friend died from cancer. Tragic and heartbreaking, but she knew it was coming and she had her family around her. She had had time to prepare some things and say her goodbyes.

None came without the pain and heartbreak of losing someone. None were good news, but the first 3 robbed the families of something special, where the cancer didn't. It sounds wrong to even say that, but it is true.

I suspect that the subject matter will be too raw and emotionally difficult for some people to be able to process, but that doesn't make it wrong for him to say it. We don't talk about death enough, I do think it would be better if we were more open about it.

If you have read it and have a different opinion to me, that's fine.

That's the point of an op-ed piece.

Quite.

I was a journalist, I have been a PR. I understand what you are saying from that side.

But people are entitled to react in the way they react to what is a very sensitive subject. As you say it is op-ed.If people are angered and wounds re-opened by what is a provocative piece, then that is their experience and reaction.

FWIW, I think he has a responsibility in his specific position not to be sensationalist or insensitive. Just my opinion. I don't think he is in a purely journalistic position.

I guess that's not helpful. But it is, it illustrates perfectly why this is such a tense thread.

No one is going to be entirely in accord with anyone else and there will not any accord regarding how this topic that should be discussed, if at all.

But he's not saying dying is good. Of course it's not. At the very least you never find out how Game of Thrones turns out, which I know annoyed my mum, amongst other things.

He's asking people to consider the manner of their death.

Its a horrible way to die! It took my gran 6 months and in that time she lost her despite the amazing nurses and my grandad doing their best. That disease just kept taking... Horrible man how dare he say that.

There's no "good" way to die. It's all messy and undignified no matter which way you go.

Having seen someone die of organ failure where they just keep doing more and more invasive procedures over what is ultimately a lost cause, cancer is about on par with that.

With cancer, you do have time to say goodbye and come to terms with dying and your own mortality. I have a few people in my family with cancer, some are curable, others I don't think will be, and a couple are dead. In a way I'm glad my grandmother will die of cancer because this year everyone got to go to her house for one last good Christmas before she starts (or doesn't start) chemo. After that, the chemo could very well kill her at her age and if it doesn't, she won't be having an enjoyable Christmas next year sick and exhausted from it.

That said, as much as he likes to romanticize it you don't get to choose how you die. Just because one cancer went into remission doesn't mean it will stay that way or you won't die of a different type. Your cancer could go into remission and you could be struck by an oncoming bus the next day. Curing cancer doesn't necessarily line you up for a worse death, just a different one.

I will say from experience that it is better to let someone go from and die as peacefully as possible from a fatal diagnosis instead of dragging it out so that the dying person is humiliated and in agonoy for the sake of medical treatment. So for that, I will agree that it is better to stop treating an incurable thing for the sake of the person dying.

He's asking people to consider the manner of their death.

And on that aspect (content), I'm baffled that anyone of a medical bent is asserting that there is a single cancer manner of death.

To be honest, losing people we love is awful. I doubt there is a good way to lose those we cherish. I can see that any article going anywhere nest this subject will be emotive. But I think the man is not hate-able for wanting to open a discussion on treatment.
My (limited) experience of serious illness is how isolating it can be - partly because there is this huge public silence. You are catapulted int a world - a hospital ward - which is divorced from the outside world, where people just Do Not Talk about this. And then afterwards there are very few people to talk to about it, and no language, really, to describe what you've been through.
It can be weird and lonely.

My dp is terminally ill with cancer and he wishes he didn't know that he was dying.
People don't know what to say to him and he feels like a burden.

Yes he has time to spend with his loved ones but knowing he is dying doesn't make it better. It makes it so hard on him.

My father is 78. He is starting a trial drug for prostate cancer next week. But according to Dr Smith, that drug is a waste of money, because Papa might get dementia and that would be worse. Fair enough, that's Dr Smith's opinion, but mine is that he's a wanker for it, and he's the one who put it out there on the internet.

Does anyone know any more about his patients' advocacy group?

www.patientsknowbest.com/about-us.html

What's that all about, then?

I think this man's remarks are cruel, crass and without care or thought for those victims of cancer young or old or the families left devastated by the loss of a loved one.

My dear Father was taken from us by this cruel unrelenting disease. At no point have I ever considered that is/was 'the best way to go'.
I doubt that anyone who has had someone dear to them die from cancer ever considered it the best option!
Horrendous comments from someone who has perhaps worked in the field too long and has become immune to the true horror of this disease.

As an Oncology and then a palliative care Nurse and having watched hundreds of patients die of various forms of cancer and the emotional and sometimes physical pain that they endure, I would opt for sudden death any day.

'He's asking people to consider the manner of their death.'

He is making comparisons on modes of death which is stupid and lazy, since no one gets to chose, suicide excepted, which he conveniently leaves out.

He is concluding that cancer is the best way to die, so stop spending money trying to cure it.

Well, let's hope he doesn't find himself slowly strangling to death of an aggressive lung tumour, unable to be vented or use CPAP due to tumour, still waking up despite huge doses of sedative as there is no mets to the brain, in panic unable to breathe.

I think he has a responsibility in his specific position not to be sensationalist or insensitive. Just my opinion. I don't think he is in a purely journalistic position.

Okay. It's my opinion that his short article wasn't at all sensationalist or insensitive. It was his opinion and pretty mild it was too. As I said, once you press Send, it's a hostage to fortune.

If you worried about what people might do with your material, you'd never write anything.

Do we want informed and educated people to do that? I do.

But hats off to the person at ITV who spun it into a story about killing cancer tots. Disclaimer before some trigger-happy person jumps in: that's not what I think; that's what happens and those are the distasteful terms that are used.

I've some sympathy with that person at ITV news because I've been in that position too, especially in the dog days between Christmas and New Year, so don't like to judge too harshly.

In that position I'd have come up with that report. In my limited defence, at least I'd have read the source material before spinning it and banking my shift money.

The source material is out there as never before. You can read it. If you don't bother to do that it's not my problem.

I do get what he's saying, however:
My mother died of cancer in 2013. It was fucking harrowing and like watching someone being tortured. I'm not over that yet.
My father died very suddenly a few years before. Dropped dead of a heart attack, entirely unexpectedly. The shock was horrendous, but I'm also very glad that he didn't suffer any long, drawn-out pain or indignity.

But hats off to the person at ITV who spun it into a story about killing cancer tots. Disclaimer before some trigger-happy person jumps in: that's not what I think; that's what happens and those are the distasteful terms that are used.

I've some sympathy with that person at ITV news because I've been in that position too, especially in the dog days between Christmas and New Year, so don't like to judge too harshly.

Maybe I am judging him too harshly myself for assuming he cynically foresaw what would happen - the timing, the spin, the selective quotes.

Or maybe not.

Ludoole

I've lost both my parents to cancer - dad aged 64 and mum aged 70. And several other members of my extended family. It's awful.

And yet, I think the blog raises some interesting points - and in general terms I think there is no subject that should not be talked about. People are free to disagree with him, but having experienced the loss of a someone close to cancer is not a good enough reason in itself.

I doubt that anyone who has had someone dear to them die from cancer ever considered it the best option!

We'd all like to die in our sleep, and we'd all like that for our loved ones. The fact is, that very rarely happens.

Every death is terrible, I won't get graphic but there is no clean or peaceful way for the body to break down even in a sudden death. A good death is an illusion, it always will be. The only difference between a sudden death and cancer is that you can watch it happen first hand. A sudden death you just hear about over the phone, and you can pretend it wasn't so bad.

If my grandmother didn't die of cancer, she'd have died another equally terrible way. She would still die and cancer didn't change that. Everyone is mortal, and everyone here will die one day. It is nice to be able to say good bye and wrap up loose ends. I'd rather be able to say good bye and know that a person was dying then to suddenly have them snatched from me. It was bittersweet, but we were all glad to say goodbye.

So yes, knowing a few people who died of cancer, and all death being equal, being able to say goodbye is the best option.

Maybe I am judging him too harshly myself for assuming he cynically foresaw what would happen - the timing, the spin, the selective quotes.

It's possible. Has he been sitting on sofas to captalise on this?

As far as I can work out, he wrote a short op-ed piece that got picked up by an eager beaver doing shifts at ITV news.

limitedperiodonly thank you.

Dr Smith warned people to ‘stay away from overambitious oncologists’ and said that charities should stop wasting billions trying to cure the disease was repeated very often - my bold, words he didn't actually say.

I can see why so many are furious with him, the above being one example of the deliberate misrepresentation - note the inverted commas for the direct quotes! I doubt all the other quotes are in direct response to this piece, they can't be, given the dates, another false picture.

Why must this be done? We need to be able to discuss such things. We need to explore how to best use the ever growing/improving bank of medical knowledge we have access to, including how best to support families.

I would love to be able to discuss the experiences of those who survive the suicide of a mother... but tend to get shushed when I start on the negativity of feelings. Why? All emotions are relevant when you are bereaved, all of them!

It's one of the most stupid and superficial articles I've ever read

That's not an interpretation with which I'd agree Loletta

But each to their own.

Limitedperiodonly - I'm finding it fascinating to see how many people actively choose not to read the original source.