Cancer ‘the best way to die because you can reflect’, claims leading doctor

A former editor of The British Medical Journal has claimed cancer is the best way to die. Richard Smith, who is chairman of the board of directors of medical smartphone app Patients Know Best, believes the opportunity to reflect on life before it ends is important. In an article published in The BMJ, the 62-year-old wrote that while most people tell him they would prefer a sudden death, he thinks that is very hard on the families of the deceased.

This is, I recognise, a romantic view of dying, but it is achievable with love, morphine, and whisky. Let’s stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death.

Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ

Smith said: “Death from cancer is the best … You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion.” He added: “The long, slow death from dementia may be the most awful as you are slowly erased, but then again when death comes it may be just a light kiss. Death from organ failure - respiratory, cardiac, or kidney - will have you far too much in hospital and in the hands of doctors.”

My patients are very clear about when they do and when they don’t want treatment, and they would much prefer me to be ambitious than nihilistic.

Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician

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