By Orli Strickman, Senior Associate Editor
On Sept. 29, the Health Professions office, Core Studies department and Aequitas Public Humanities and the Arts hosted a panel on this year’s core book, “When Breath Becomes Air.” The panel featured Laura Waldoch, a nurse practitioner in palliative care at Northwestern Medicine; Bob O’Connor, professor of philosophy; and Dawn Holt Lauber, reverend at Glen Ellyn Evangelical Covenant Church.
The event opened with an introduction by Tiffany Kriner, professor of English. “We hope that everyone will consider engaging the book, reading together, and creating amazing conversations,” she said.
“When Breath Becomes Air” was written by Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon who, at age 36, was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, the memoir chronicles Kalanithi’s diagnosis and the philosophical issues he and his wife grapple with as he approaches the end of his life. Kalanithi died while writing the book.
Lauber spoke about her experience counseling congregants facing death. “They continue to live into the hope of their faith, of everything they’ve been believing and thinking about in their relationship with Jesus,” she said.
Waldoch asked Lauber how she ministers to dying people who may not be Christian. “What do you do with that patient that doesn’t have that faith?” she asked.
“At that point in life, I tend to see people grasping for faith, even if they haven’t had it in the past,” Lauber replied. “At that moment, things are very real and very raw – there’s rarely an ‘oh, I don’t believe that!’”
The panelists discussed the complex ethical issues surrounding end-of-life care. “I regard the decision to go into hospice care as implicating oneself in a really profound ethical consideration,” said O’Connor. “It’s fraught with the moral weight of somehow rejecting life, of giving up on life.”
He acknowledged that patients may face coercion from doctors, the government or family members to follow a particular course of care. “There’s often conflict in terms of motivation, so it’s really difficult to get clarity to preserve the autonomy of the patient, that this is the decision of the patient that they are making fully consciously, with informed consent.”
Waldoch added that while patients may feel pressure to fight to stay alive, their quality of life equally matters. “They’re fighting for their quality of life, and for me that’s just as honorable of a fight,” she said.
O’Connor emphasized the importance of determining power of attorney for patients who are seriously ill. “These advance directives are absolutely critical when we are approaching that decision,” he said.
Lauber raised the importance of remembering how Jesus handled suffering. “It’s very hard to watch someone suffer and wish that you could do it, that you could take that on. And then you think, that’s what Jesus did,” she said. “If somebody wants to be angry at me, it’s my calling to listen to that, to be present in that.”
O’Connor also shared about his daughter, who passed away in 2012 after a ten-year battle with pediatric neuroblastoma. “In her suffering, she lived this extraordinary, joyous life because she was filled with hope,” he said.
As a philosophy professor, he was struck by the dichotomy of witnessing death throughout his daughter’s cancer journey and then teaching on death in his classroom. He found this particularly evident as he studied Romans 5:3, which discusses Christians rejoicing in suffering. “I was struck by the first term, ‘suffering,’ and the last term, ‘hope.’ Hope isn’t really hope if it’s in something that is seen,” he said. “Always be prepared when people ask about the hope within you. Here’s what suffering does: it offers the occasion to minister life.”
The panelists concluded with time for questions. Students asked how O’Connor was changed by his daughter’s cancer diagnosis, how Waldoch deals with patient deaths and what it looks like to honor the dead.
Kriner closed the event with an invitation for people to further engage with the core book, including a tour of the Wheaton cadaver lab by retired professor of applied health science Dana Townsend.
