The Clash of Meanings: Medical Narrative and Biographical Story at Life's End

This article is concerned with whether or not it is right to artificially preserve a declining life. Back before medical technology was exponentially advanced, when a persons health declined death was almost always inevitable, and you cherished the final moments together, recounting the joyous memories, and paying your respects to your loved one. With medical technology so advanced these days the final days of a persons life are turned into months or even years, where family members are forced to grapple with wether they are making the right decision, plagued with doubt. We have come to a point where we can preserve the physical being, when the soul is long past ready to embark to the heavens. This is a difficult situation for all sides though, because physicians are there to preserve life, and can only offer uncertainties instead of concrete answers. Families don't know what to do with those uncertainties, will they get better, should we at least give them a chance to get better, how can we preserve such a miserable existence it is immoral, is it even an existence being in such a terrible state? And they are forced to make these decision without knowing what their loved one truly wants because they are no longer of sound mind. 

In this article the author takes the stand that "end of life care without technologies for life prolongation will produce a 'dignified' and 'meaningful' death." The author uses medical narrative, citing 2 specific stories, to illustrate the confusion modern day technology has placed on those final days of life. In both cases the patients have lost mental functions and physical functions due to stroke, and the families are put in the representative position of the loved one.

Both stories tug at the heart strings and demonstrate the technologies used to preserve life.

The author gives their own definition of medical narrative, I use the term narrative in a well-recognized sense, meaning accounts from individuals that portray their subjective experience, including a sense of intention, explanation, and emotion. Social scientists have borrowed the concept of narrative from the traditional humanities and view it as an expansive tool through which to articulate how individuals construct meaning and negotiate their worlds."