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A native of Switzerland, during World War II Kübler-Ross volunteered at a Zurich hospital, helping refugees from Nazi Germany. After the war, she visited a concentration camp and chose her path: she decided to become a doctor -- a psychiatrist -- and study how people dealt with death. Namely, their own. "I always say that death can be one of the greatest experiences ever," she wrote in her 1997 autobiography. "If you live each day of your life right, then you have nothing to fear." She got her medical degree in 1957 and moved to the U.S. Advances in medical diagnosis made it more common for doctors to predict oncoming death, and farther in advance. Should the terminally ill patients be told of their prognoses? How should they prepare? How can they be helped? What role should doctors and nurses play in the process? Kübler-Ross broke centuries of taboos to study such questions -- and come up with answers. Her 1969 book On Death and Dying was both ground-breaking and best-selling. It described the "five stages" of impending death that most patients go through (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance), and found reaching the last step was easiest for those who could look back and agree their life had meaning. Hers certainly did: despite falling out of favor after embracing theories of life after death, she used her studies and fame to help create the now commonly accepted hospice care system in the U.S., and Time magazine named her one of the "100 Most Important Thinkers" of the 20th century. Her son said she saw her death coming after a series of strokes -- and accepted it. She died August 24 at her home in Scottsdale, Ariz. She was 78.
From This is True for 22 August 2004
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