The Null Device

A study in the British Medical Journal reveals that terminally ill patients and their doctors systematically delude themselves of their prospects, going as far as to make plans for the future, and that their doctors collude with them in this.

False optimism often ends in regret as patients suddenly recognise that they are close to death, and felt they did not have enough time to say their goodbyes or make final preparations.

A sign of an unhealthy attitude of denial to death, prevalent in modern Western culture.

Want to say something? Do so here.

Note to spammers: This comment system applies the rel=nofollow attribute to the poster's URL and all links. Posting links to this page will not improve their search engine rankings.

Display name:
URL:(optional)
To prove that you are not a bot, please enter the text in the image on the right in the field below it.

Your Comment:

Remember my details.

Please keep comments on topic and to the point. Inappropriate comments may be deleted.

Note that markup is stripped from comments; URLs will be automatically converted into links.