But the idea of dying well is foreign to most Americans because of our culture's grounding in the physical, impersonal side of dying, says Dr. Ira Byock, a Montana hospice director who has studied the various ways people die. Twenty years after the groundbreaking research of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the new movement dwells more on living well in the last stage of life than it does on dying. In fact, people who seek to die well discover the keys to living well along the way. When people release their fears of dying, emotional and spiritual healing become possible. The dying-well movement reflects the growing influence of two decades of hospice care in America.
Hospice provides pain management and care of the whole person without hastening death.
Dying people rarely resort to suicide or euthanasia because of physical pain, doctors say. The Center to Improve Care of the Dying at George Washington University focuses on suffering as an issue separate from pain. Across the country, some hospital systems have signed on with an American Medical Association effort to train doctors in pain management and work with the dying. They are skills long ignored in the country's medical schools, says Thalhuber, who heads the training for HealthEast doctors.