On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying

There is a great divide separating the kind of care Americans say they want at the end of life and what our culture currently provides. Surveys show that we want to die at home, free of pain, surrounded by the people we love. But the vast majority of us die in the hospital, alone, and experiencing unnecessary discomfort. Bill Moyers goes from the bedsides of the dying to the front lines of a movement to improve end-of-life care in On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying. Two years in production, this four-part, six-hour series crosses the country from hospitals to hospices to homes to capture some of the most intimate stories ever filmed and the most candid conversations ever shared with a television audience. The series includes: Living with Dying, A Different Kind of Care, A Death of One’s Own, and A Time to Change. (2000)

 

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC BROADCATING

  • A Death of One's Own
    September 10, 2000
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    In this program, Bill Moyers unravels the complexities underlying the many choices at the end of life, including the bitter debate over physician-assisted suicide.
  • Society
    Living With Dying
    September 10, 2000 | On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying
    Real people with terminal illnesses share their stories of living with dying. Also their caretakers share the challenges of delivering a "good death."
  • Society
    A Different Kind of Care
    September 11, 2000 | On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying
    Our cultural attitudes towards suffering are sometimes used as a rationale to withhold medications--attitudes that palliative-care physicians hope to change in order to make dying less frightening and less painful.
  • Health & Science
    A Time to Change
    September 13, 2000 | On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying
    The Balm of Gilead project puts the comfort and care of a hospice into a hospital setting, providing dignified, loving treatment for indigent patients.