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 of your—I mean in that culture, you’re really not supposed to talk about death or—and so you have to find 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.