33 Meditations on Death: Notes from the Wrong End of Medicine

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I want everyone at the age of seventy to discuss and document what medical interventions they would be willing to accept over their next decade or so of life. Like many lapsed Catholics the author is sometimes guilty of imagining that a Roman Catholic understanding of how to respond to death and what religion means is the only valid (but wrong) way of being religious. I discovered this book after a guest speaker on a radio 4 programme mentioned it and thought I’d give it a go. I’ve recommended this book to so many and my parents have read this as a result (and also loved it)! This is reflected less in his observations - which are more evenhanded - than in his sweeping asides and unfortunately these do intrude given the subject matter of what is otherwise a thoughtful and interesting book about dying.

This unusual and important book is a series of reflections on death in all its forms: the science of it, the medicine, the tragedy and the comedy. Jarrett explains how we can ensure that our last years are comfortable and not a burden to us, the health care system and, most importantly, our loved ones. It is striking how the candour of our public discourse fails when we get on to the subject of death, a significant and puzzling failure for it is the fate we all share. It’s fantastic - every chapter left me reflecting on my own life, what I would like for the people I love and what I hope my children will experience. David Jarrett has been a doctor for forty years, thirty of which as an NHS consultant in geriatric and stroke medicine.

We are all going to die, at some stage, and decisions we make will inform our declining years - from 25 years on. How else will my caregivers (when I'm old and gaga) know I want a glass of Aussie Chardonnay at 7pm every evening. I have a plan in the end and won't be left suffering more needlessly because of lacking a NDR directive.

Bursting with empathy, common sense and humour, would that we could all be so fortunate as to have the author at our bedside when the time comes. We all need to have conversation about what we want in the end and keep the conversation going with your family.No one wants to live long enough to sit incapacitated in a wheelchair in the corridor of a hospital or nursing home.

Old age and the end of life are things that we need to prepare for and discuss with our family members.I am naturally a little biased but this is a lovely book which highlights the simultaneous futility and the beauty of life.

David Jarrett's 33 Meditations, the fruit of forty years of professional experience with people at the end of their lives, is not only timely and important, but hugely enjoyable. I am still working, albeit part time, as a consultant geriatrician and stroke physician on the south coast of England. This wonderfully enlightening book by a doctor who cares for the dying is a plea for all of us to consider now what a good death should look like and what we’d want for ourselves.

It is immensely readable and is both funny and poignant even though it covers very difficult and often avoided subjects; namely the fact that we all die, that old age can be grim and that death is not always the worst outcome. Jarrett has cared for elderly patients for many years and after reading this book, one feels assured of his empathy and compassion towards all his patients. I would highly recommend reading it and then discussing its contents with family members and your GP. Profound, provocative, strangely funny and astonishingly compelling, it is an impassioned plea that we start talking frankly and openly about death.