Health

Live and let die: Doctors call for Aussie students to learn about death

Jul 05, 2018

AMA Queensland is calling for school children to be taught about death and writing wills in schools. Source: Pixabay

While it’s not uncommon for kids to learn everything from art to maths and history at school, doctors in Queensland are calling for death to be taught as a subject in a bid to help younger people come to terms with the realities of the end of a life.

If the proposal is approved, teachers across the state will help children better understand the process of ageing and dying, with Australian Medical Association (AMA) Queensland Chair of General Practice Dr Richard Kidd noting it will be the younger generations dealing with end-of-life care as the over 65s population continues to grow faster than younger age groups.

“Young people need to be educated about medical, legal and other issues that surround ageing and dying so they are capable of making informed choices when the time comes,” Dr Kidd said. “More than any other generation, they will need to understand Advance Care Plans where their loved ones will decide how they want care to be delivered at the end of their lives.”

AMA Queensland said young people should be learning how to make a will in school and that these lessons about death education could be implemented across a range of existing school subjects including science, legal studies and health. There are also calls for advanced care plans – which help people plan medical care in advance – to be taught to children as soon as possible.

“We’ve seen sad cases of young men getting bad injuries playing sport and it would have helped their families and doctors enormously if they knew how he wanted to be cared for in his last days,” Dr Kidd said.

The AMA’s calls were echoed by Palliative Care Queensland, which said death education would assist young people when it comes to resilience about loss, ageing, dying and grief.

“They will be far more likely to be involved in the dying process of their relatives, work colleagues and friends than previous generations, Palliative Care Queensland CEO Shyla Mills said. “They will need to be very resilient, more compassionate and develop a positive, proactive approach to death.”

Queensland schools could teach death — Do you think death should be taught to young children? Source: Pixabay

Mills said while there was pressure on educators to add more material into the school curriculum, death is life’s only 100 per cent guarantee.

“The effects of our ageing population will be felt most by those at school today,” she added.

Meanwhile, Kidd said teaching children about ageing and dying in an educational forum could prevent young people from picking up anxiety or concern their own parents had experienced when it came to the topic.

“In many families, death is a bit of a taboo topic that only gets discussed at crisis points,” Kidd said. “Death education at school would help remove any stigma.”