Story by Eric J. Hall, Huffington Post
Given the choice, I think most of us would like to die at home surrounded by our loved ones. A century ago, that was more likely than it is today when the end of life is more often spent in a hospital, often kept alive by machines to help us breath and drugs to ease our physical pain, while we become spiritually and emotionally detached. I was quite moved recently by a segment on the PBS News Hour about a palliative care physician, Michael Fratkin, whose patients live in a vast rural area of northern California. He travels a great many miles by small plane, but once a solid relationship in an environment of trust has been established, he is able to visit his patients and monitor their physical and spiritual health more frequently with videoconferencing.
