Is death something to be feared or delayed? Perhaps cultural relativism plays a role in an individual’s opinion of the matter. For instance, while Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, the United States spends a significant amount of money on medical care in order to stave off death for as long as humanly possible (Byock, 2015). Opinions may vary on how death should be addressed, but it may be best to accept it as a natural part of life. However, what should not be accepted, in the opinion of Ira Byock, is the level of pain and suffering that often precedes death (Byock, 2015).
In his article published in the New York Times, Byock challenges the health care system and criticizes it for mishandling terminally ill patients. Byock begins with a personal anecdote and talks about an acquaintance, Michael, who was forced to choose between cancer treatment and hospice care, an end-of-life care service for the terminally ill. Michael chose the latter and, unfortunately, passed away. Byock proceeds to highlight the flaws of the
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Byock begins the article by discussing the experience of his deceased friend, who faced difficulties in the health care system first-hand. This provides Byock a second-hand ethos to support his argument for end-of-life care reform. In examining problems of the health care system, Byock provides clear statistics and references such as, “an American living with cancer has a roughly one in four chance of dying in a hospital and a similar chance of spending a portion of his or her last month in intensive care” (Byock, 2015). He links to a study from the Journal of American Medicine and cites reports from the Institute of Medicine, which examined further problems with the American health system and end-of-life care (Byock, 2015). Clearly, Byock grounds his argument in