Louisville Medicine Volume 71, Issue 8 | Page 22

BOOK REVIEW : Let ’ s Talk about Death ( Over Dinner ) Author : Michael Hebb Da Capo Lifelong Books , Oct . 2018

reviewed by TOM JAMES , MD

The train was speeding through the early evening on the way to Portland , Oregon from Seattle . Michael Hebb went to the dining car and joined a small table for dinner . All were strangers to each other . Two were physicians . During the dinner , Michael casually asked the two doctors what they found most difficult about practicing in their respective health care systems . Both women responded the same : “ How we die . End of life .” Surprised , Michael then asked if it were the conversations about “ end of life .” The two doctors vigorously agreed .

That was the start of a campaign that Michael Hebb spearheaded . He is not in health care . He is a Portland restaurateur and author , but not just any old restaurateur . In his “ underground restaurants ” he blended farm to table haute cuisine , making his restaurants unique by having his guests sit at long tables and read passages from Gertrude Stein . This was his strategy to create an atmosphere of fostering conversation among strangers while they enjoyed four-star dinners . So this dinner conversation on the train became the logical next conversation topic for Michael Hebberoy ( he subsequently shortened his name to Michael Hebb ).
To jump-start conversations on death , Michael began hosting small dinners of six or eight people . The guests had to start in the kitchen helping to prepare the meal . This allowed the guests to get to know each other and be more relaxed when at the end of the dinner , Michael would ease into the kind of conversations that physicians find extremely difficult . Michael would start by asking each person to recount their experiences with a person important to them - someone who had died . Such descriptions would often bring out a variety of emotions . And since as humans we can often relate to other people ’ s stories , those varied emotional responses were appreciated by each dinner guest .
The conversations would then be directed to individualized preferences as to how each would want to die . For some , a spectacular event would suddenly carry them out of this life . For others it would be drifting off in peaceful sleep in the presence of loved ones . Very few wanted to die in a hospital . The majority
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