Abstract
The purpose of "Memento Mori", is to illustrate behavioral and affective parameters that death and dying imposes, through a study of existential literature. The purpose of the exercise is to give a non-evaluative presentation of human behaviour, natural to both layman and medical practitioners, when confronted with suffering and death. I hope to clarify how death related personal reflection can be incorporated and internalized with relevance to how we meet our patients.
Dying represents a life phase that cannot be professionalized. We must accept dying as a part and parcel of living, and thereby normalizing it as shared human knowledge. Doctors used to be aware of their finite limitations in regard to the human life cycle. Modern technology and its resultant medical innovations, has blurred the traditional balance between nature and culture. If the natural preconditions for living and dying no longer exist, then death becomes the final consequence of our technological incompetence.
Due to immeasurable medical advances we live longer, but at the same time, death becomes a greater burden. This presents a host of new needs that have no technological solutions. It is undesirable to only relate to a patients physical pain, while ignoring his very real and present existential anxiety. An ethical supplementation to medical professional qualifications is required. This is by no means an argument that we should return to last century`s understanding of death, thereby dismissing modern medical advantages. It is an argument for a reintroduction of the human factor through study and reflection of relevant literature of philosophy.