Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, 1926-2004

Reading audio



2004-9-20

VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm Bob
Doughty.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Sarah Long. This week: the
life story of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the doctor who gave a voice to
the dying.

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VOICE ONE:

For most of her life, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross studied death. She
became famous. She changed the way many others in the medical
profession care for the dying.

In recent years, Doctor Kubler-Ross could speak from personal
experience. She had a series of infections and strokes. But she
continued her work, even as her health weakened. Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross died last month at her home in Arizona, in the American
West. She was seventy-eight years old.

VOICE TWO:

She was born Elisabeth Kubler in Switzerland in nineteen
twenty-six. She was born at the same time as her two sisters. Back
then, giving birth to triplets was far riskier than it is now. All
three girls and their mother survived. But Elisabeth weighed less
than a kilogram at birth.

After high school, she became interested in the process of death.
She worked without pay at a hospital in Zurich. She helped care for
World War Two refugees. Later she traveled through Europe. She
visited countries affected by the war. She also visited a Nazi
German death camp in Poland. It was there that she decided she would
become a doctor of psychiatry and help people deal with death.

VOICE ONE:

Elisabeth Kubler studied medicine at the University of Zurich.
She became a doctor in nineteen fifty-seven. She married another
doctor, Emmanuel Ross. In nineteen fifty-eight they moved to the
United States. She worked for a couple of years at a hospital in New
York City.

Doctor Kubler-Ross said the lack of interest in dying patients at
the hospital shocked her. She demanded better care. She developed
programs to provide emotional support.

In nineteen sixty-one, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross had her first chance
to teach others about what she found so important. She moved West to
teach at the University of Colorado Medical School.

She knew that few doctors wanted to talk about the subject of
death. Most usually kept the truth from dying patients. But
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wanted medical students to explore what she
called the "greatest mystery in medicine."

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VOICE TWO:

There was very little written about the subject of death. But she
had met a young cancer patient, a teenage girl with leukemia. The
teenager had spoken openly and emotionally about her fear. She also
expressed anger that her family was not preparing for the
unavoidable.

Doctor Kubler-Ross invited the girl to be a guest speaker in
class. The doctor told her to be completely honest, so the medical
students could learn what it is like to be sixteen and dying.

Many of those future doctors cried. Word spread about this
unusual lesson organized by Doctor Kubler-Ross. Her medical classes
became very popular. Students of religion and members of the clergy
also began to attend. So did social workers.

In nineteen sixty-five, Doctor Kubler-Ross began to teach at the
University of Chicago Medical School. It was there that she began a
series of classes that led to her famous book in nineteen sixty-nine
called "On Death and Dying."

VOICE ONE:

Some religion students had asked her for help in the study of
death. She set up meetings with dying patients. She asked them
questions while the students observed from another room.

Other doctors said patients, especially the young, should be
sheltered from all talk of death. But Doctor Kubler-Ross said dying
patients knew when they were being lied to, and that these lies had
a terrible effect. She said dying patients often felt alone, like
they had done something wrong.

VOICE TWO:

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross had talked to enough people to develop a
theory. She found that many people go through five stages when they
learn they are dying. The first reaction usually is denial. In time,
denial generally turns into anger, the idea of "why me?"

People often next go through a stage that Doctor Kubler-Ross
called bargaining. They might seek intervention from a higher power.
Or they might think they can avoid death by changes in the way they
live. When bargaining fails, a person may begin to think of all that
will be lost and left undone, which leads to depression.

The last part of this process that Doctor Kubler-Ross described
is acceptance. Generally, she found that people at the fifth stage
mainly seek peace and rest. They disconnect, to different extents,
from the world around them.

VOICE ONE:

The work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross first appeared in a popular
magazine. Life magazine published a story about a woman who
criticized the way doctors treated her at the University of Chicago
teaching hospital. This was one of the dying patients interviewed by
Doctor Kubler-Ross.

Hospital administrators were not happy. They said the hospital
wanted to be known for saving lives. The hospital would not let its
doctors attend any more of the lectures about death.

Still, the article in Life magazine made Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
famous. She received speaking invitations from across the United
States.

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VOICE TWO:

The force of the movement that she began is still felt today
through programs like hospice care. A hospice is a home for people
who are very sick and have no possibility for a cure. Doctor
Kubler-Ross did not start hospice care in the United States, but her
work provided guiding ideas.

The Hospice Foundation of America says hospices do not try to
lengthen or shorten life. They try to make the final days as
comfortable as possible. Hospices provide support to family members
as well.

The teachings of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross dealt not only with death,
but also with life. She often said the people who died most
peacefully were those with the least regret about how they had
lived.

VOICE ONE:

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross studied the process of dying until she was
too sick to continue. She became especially interested in the idea
of life after death. She and other doctors interviewed thousands of
patients with near-death experiences. She said the stories of what
the people experienced before doctors had saved their lives were all
similar.

They usually said they experienced a freedom from pain, and a
sense that they were floating above their bodies. Even so, they
could often remember the words and actions of medical workers in the
room.

Doctor Kubler-Ross reported that many people also spoke of moving
toward a light or a feeling of warmth. They remembered that this
felt so peaceful, they did not want to return.

As a result of these interviews, Doctor Kubler-Ross reasoned that
there was some kind of life after death. She stated this as fact at
a meeting of psychiatrists in nineteen seventy-three. She was widely
criticized. Later, she spoke of spirits that served as her "guides."
As a result of statements like these, her position as a scientist
suffered greatly.

VOICE TWO:

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross left hospital work to further explore her
theories about life after death. She also became interested in the
study of what are known as out-of-body experiences. These new
interests caused tension in her marriage. Her husband divorced her
and took their two children to live with him. Years later, though,
at the end of his life, he moved to Arizona where Doctor Kubler-Ross
and her son took care of him.

In the late nineteen seventies, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross opened a
center in California. Later she opened one in Virginia where she
mainly worked with people with AIDS, especially babies. Both centers
burned. In both cases, police believed the fires had been set.

The Virginia center burned in nineteen ninety-four. The following
year, Doctor Kubler-Ross had a series of strokes. The last one
limited her ability to move. But she continued to write books. She
spent her remaining years in Scottsdale, Arizona, to be near her
son. In two thousand-two, she moved into an assisted-living center.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was with friends and family when she died
last month, on August twenty-fourth. Her death was described as
peaceful.

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VOICE ONE:

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Caty Weaver. Cynthia Kirk was
our producer. This is Bob Doughty.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Sarah Long. If you would like to send us e-mail,
write to special@voanews.com. And join us again next week for more
news about science, in Special English, on the Voice of America.