Read more of Bob Abernethy’s interview with Reverend Forrest Church: Q: There came a day in 2006 when you received a call from your physician. Tell me the story. A: He called right after I’d had a barium esophagram and … More →

February 27, 2009

Camp Ray of Hope is like no other. People grieving the death of a spouse, a child, or a friend, attend in order to learn how to accept that death and go on. It is filled with laughter, beauty, and pain. More →

October 17, 2008

PATTI JETTE HANLEY, senior associate producer: Every summer, first-year medical students from throughout Maryland gather with family members of people who donated their bodies to science. It’s a solemn ritual, and it helps to humanize the experience for students who … More →

June 20, 2008

Terminally ill patients exercise their “right to die” when they want their suffering to end, but what about those who want to live? A British court ruled that a doctor can decide when to terminate a patient’s life. Leslie Burke suffers from cerebral ataxia and will eventually lose his ability to speak and swallow, yet he is concerned that doctors will choose to end his life against his wishes. More →

August 26, 2005

Read Bob Abernethy’s full interview with William Sloane Coffin: Q: You have, in the course of your life, participated in a good many great causes and have done so with a lot of passion. As you look around the country … More →

August 27, 2004

There is a moral issue that is facing and dividing many families: what to do when someone you love is in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state. Is it best to withdraw the feeding tube, despite the objections of … More →

May 21, 2004

A Florida program called “Hospice of the Sun Coast” pairs high school volunteers with hospice patients, and in the process the teens say they “walk away with a lesson in life.” More →

February 21, 2003

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In the aftermath of 9/11, the daily headlines talked of bombers in Afghanistan and the search for Osama bin Laden. Away from the headlines, in thousands of homes across the U.S., families were dealing with their very … More →

September 6, 2002

A new report from the Institute of Medicine, which advises the government on health policy, calls on the U.S. to do far more than is now being done to relieve the suffering of dying children and their families. Doctors and families face a dilemma in trying to choose between painful treatment that is unlikely to work and palliative care to make possible a so-called “good death.” More →

September 7, 2001

  LUCKY SEVERSON (guest anchor): And now a profile of a man who knows a great deal about poetry and a great deal about funerals. He is Thomas Lynch, writer and mortician, and each of his vocations enriches the other. … More →

May 4, 2001