Shakespeare on palliative care

In his lifetime, William Shakespeare wrote almost 120,000 lines and about 900,000 words. His 37 plays and 154 sonnets burnished his reputation as the unrivaled wordsmith of the English language. So what would the Bard, who had something to say about everything, have said about palliative care of the suffering of the sick? Although I couldn’t resurrect him from his venerated grave, I could unearth quotes from his collective works which addressed the question of human suffering. My interview with William Shakespeare, I imagined, would go like this: Mr. Shakespeare thank you for agreeing to chat with me. I read that in Queen Elizabeth’s England unrelieved pain was pandemic in the Old World and that unrelieved physical anguish was equally rampant in the New World. Caring for the physical, psychological and spiritual pain caused by disease is a challenge that is not being met everywhere even today. Can you tell me why you wrote so poignantly about harsh human suffering? O, I have suffered with those I saw suffer! A brave vessel who had no doubt some noble creature in her – dashed all to pieces! O, the cry did knock against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished! – The Tempest Well, half a millennium more than four centuries after you wrote these words the sick are today still being “dashed all to pieces,” and it is still underappreciated. But those whose death is closing in on them and their loved ones desperately need to be told the truth about their prognosis. ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Palliative Care Source Type: blogs