[Doctor and death]

Doctors are instilled with the need to avert and repress death. By virtue of their profession, death is considered the enemy, their mortal enemy. In modern-day hospitals in particular there is a tendency to reduce the mystery of death to a biological and technical algorithm. A critical revision of fundamental medical conduct is underway as a compensatory countercurrent to this age-old way of thinking and acting. This shift in attitudes involves a humane concept of the physician. His task is not limited to healing and reconstruction, but sometimes merely requires discriminatory restriction to palliation and accompaniment. Ever more physicians are becoming aware of the fact that they are equally responsible for the quality of dying. In coping with death, ethical imperatives are effectively juxtaposed against technical ones. Educational deficits relating to care of the terminally ill and dying have been recognized and are being rectified. This major ideational revision has led to concrete signs of turnaround which are blazing the trail toward more humane and dignified dying: palliation, adapted in accordance with modern science, is experiencing a renaissance. The essential features of a comprehensive palliative therapy are outlined. Assistance during dying (accompanying the dying, passive euthanasia) is contrasted with assistance to die (active euthanasia).