Being Mortal: Medicine, Mortality and Caring for Older Adults

Mortality is the inevitable, final outcome of human health. Though medical education focuses on treating illness and prolonging life, healthcare professionals in practice must face the fact that patients lives cannot always be saved. This course will explore the difficult issues such as end-of-life planning, decision-making, and cost of care, that figure in hospitals, hospice, and assisted living centers. Guest speakers will include elder care workers, medical writers and filmmakers, and physicians in geriatrics, oncology and palliative care, who will lead student discussions following their lectures. Upon finishing the course, students will learn how to better handle aging and death in their medical practice, in order to improve the quality of their patients lives and that of their families as well.