Member

Let me give an example. Exactly 21 years ago this week, I had an encounter with a neurosurgeon. It was a day that changed my family’s lives and mine for ever. The outcome could have been so very different, and I do not like to think about that. It was about choice at the end of life, but whose choice? The actual choice about whether to live or die was in the hands of the doctor—let me explain. The doctor’s clinical team had been distressed when a judge approved the request of a previous patient with a high-level spinal injury to turn off her life support. He did not want to put his team through it again. Just one case of having to turn off a young woman’s life support had been enough to change his attitude and the culture of care in his team.