On the Art of Dying Well: Lydia Dugdale

The marginalization of death—its hiddenness—is strange and of course ultimately a fool’s errand. This past year and a half, living through a pandemic, has forced us to confront realities that many of us have spent years avoiding. Death is our neighbor. And yet many of us aren’t equipped to talk or think about its presence.

Our guest today, Lydia Dugdale, has written a bracing yet beautiful book, The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom. She is an associate professor of medicine and director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Columbia University. Prior to her 2019 move to Columbia, she was Associate Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics and founding Co-Director of the Program for Medicine, Spirituality, and Religion at Yale School of Medicine.