We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?
Doctors!? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's fearful obsession with trying to eke out even a possible tiny few months more of life? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's family who sues the doctor years after Cancer Man dies because the doc "didn't do all he could and spend tens of thousands of dollars to eke out another few months of pitiful life for our father/son/husband!!!!11lleleventy"
Talking directly to Cancer Man I say this: dignity, motherfucker, do you speak it? Try dying with it then you selfish asshole. The ultimate issue is that in the US, there is no dialog on death and dying, there's only more fear. We don't talk about dying, we don't want to deal with dying, we don't want to see people dying, we don't want to deal with what we sometimes must do after death (like plan funerals, etc.) Death and dying as a natural part of living are treated as almost a kind of taboo subject and rarely intrudes into public consciousness except for when complete fucking morons spout off about "death panels" and pile on more and more fear.
As a people, Americans are now defined by and controlled by every kind of fear imaginable and more the kind of fear that is only imagined.
So tell Cancer Man and his family to sit down, have a nice hot cup of shut the fuck up and figure out how to make his dying as best as circumstances allow instead of driving up everyone else's medical costs, suing good doctors into oblivion and/or driving good people out of medical practice in the first place due to these hysterical lawsuit-happy SELFISH ignorant fools.
