I'm most of the way through "Letting Go," in the Aug. 2 issue, a powerful article about how doctors do and/or should treat terminally ill patients. It's by Atul Gawande, who wrote another fabulous piece last year about how we age, which I read a second time when it was included in
Best American Essays 2009. (He's a successful surgeon, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, a writer for the
New Yorker, a MacArthur fellow, and is even cute -- do you want to marry him or kill him?)
Anyway, though it's not the least bit political, the article makes a great case for death panels. We need death panels! Oh, not the mythical panels of bureaucrats who would condemn Sarah Palin's son for not being a "contributing member of society," but somebody who helps guide people through end-of-life decisions in a realistic, caring way. Because nobody, apparently, is doing that now.