Transcript: Michael W. Painter, M.D.
Navajo tradition forbids speaking about death, so physicians must find other ways to talk about terminal illness
- [Painter:]
- I spent a period of time on the Navajo reservation where you can’t talk—I mean in that culture, you’re really not supposed to talk about death, so you have to find out all kinds of ways to talk about a terminal illness, or the likelihood of a terminal illness, or something like that, or how you might talk about it with family, because to bring it up and talk about it is to sort of make it happen.