Uncharted Episode 27: Death 101

Podcasts from Cityside

Jessica Zitter describes herself as an “accidental evangelist.” As a doctor, she set out to save lives, not to focus on death. But her work has led her to a commitment to change the current paradigm of end-of-life medical decision-making. In October 2017, Zitter, an ICU and palliative care physician at Highland Hospital, sat down with Amy Tobin, CEO of the JCC East Bay, at the Uncharted Berkeley Festival of Ideas in Berkeley. Uncharted is a production of Berkeleyside, Berkeley's award-winning independent news site. The two talked about why we have to address the “End-of-Life Conveyor Belt” where the dying are intubated, catheterized, and die attached to machines, often without even knowing they are dying. Zitter also offered tips on how to have difficult, but necessary, conversations about death with our children.