Dear Editor,
Dr Morgan draws on Dr Mannix’s discussion of ‘ordinary dying’ to explore how those “working in the deep technology of the intensive care unit (ICU)” can learn to “mov[e] away from framing our patients’ health problems as events and towards understanding them as processes”. As with ordinary dying, this is a move to understand not only the patient in a wider context of their healthcare journey, but to understand how medicine can contribute to “a good life”. As we note in our recent Marie Curie blog on ordinary dying, these are issues social scientists have a long history of exploring and which healthcare professionals will need to engage, if they are to avoid problematic normative assumptions about how their patients wish to live, be cared for, or die.
More on this topic can be found at: https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/blog/ordinary-dying-queen-elizabeth/357885
Reflections on ‘ordinary dying’ and the Queen – response to Matt Morgan and others