Tag: Other US and International crisis resources: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines OR https://drkimmyramotar.com/list-of-hotlines/ OR https://apa.org/topics/crisis-hotlines
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Melville’s Bartleby: An absurd casualty
Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French writer and philosopher. He did not want to be pinned down as an existentialist or an absurdist, or indeed a nihilist. Nevertheless, he is well known for coining the expression ‘the absurd hero’. Camus used the Greek myth of Sisyphus to illustrate this idea. Sisyphus’s…
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What could have been
Gordon SunDowney, California, United States Every year, there are 400 stories like these. The second-year medical student. The social butterfly of her 106 classmates, yet her bubbly personality masks the loneliness of living on one coast after spending the first twenty-five years of her life on the other coast. The isolation is amplified by the…
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No laughing matter
Shafiqah Samarasam Subang Jaya, Malaysia “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” These were the words of Robin Williams, the man whose own laughter was enough to make us laugh. In a world where tragedy occurs every day, his words helped us to understand the poignant meaning behind it. “Comedian”…
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Death and new-doctor eyes
Katrina GenuisVancouver, Canada With slim cuts to her wrists, she came into the emergency room and said she wanted to die. “This is clearly a cry for attention,” others said. “Send the new doctor to stitch her up.” I sat by her bed with a 30-gauge lidocaine-filled needle and 4.0 nylon sutures, and began unravelling…
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“…One must imagine Sisyphus happy”
Katerina DimaPreveza, Greece Ancient Greek mythology teems with stories of morality, despair, and the philosophy of the absurd. No story, however, had a greater impact on this young, impressionable medical student than the story of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a popular and prominent figure of Ancient Greece, the successful king of the city of Corinth. As…
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Where is the dignity in death?
Therese KwiatkowskiChicago, Illinois, USA In my experience, the end of life is neither peaceful nor dignified. I wish I had been told that death is hard work for both the patient and the loved one. I did not expect that losing my mother would be easy. I had read books about impending death and had asked…
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The good death
Raeford E Brown, JrLexington, Kentucky, USA Physicians and nurses experience death all too often. We recognize the gray hue, the fetid odor, and chill of a body that has been failing for days or months. In hospital halls, we hurriedly pass families as they struggle to deal with the loss of their loved ones. In…
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Suffocating in the bell jar: The euthanasia request by the unbearably suffering, depressed patient
Barend FlorijnAd KapteinThe Netherlands Introduction The Dutch Euthanasia Act took effect in the Netherlands in 2002. Since then the official euthanasia number of patients with a mental disorder has risen from 13 in 2011 to 42 patients in 2013.1 This Act regulates the ending of one’s life by a physician at the request of an unbearably…