Doctors and death

An article/book review in Slate takes an interesting look at the issue of how doctors, or at least American doctors, deal with death. Here's a point I have never heard before (highlighted by me):

In fact, doctors aren't bad at handling the details of dying. We know how to ease pain, promote comfort, and arrange the medical particulars. But we are disasters when it comes to death itself, just like the rest of the human species. (Morticians often have the same problem.) I admire Chen's and Stein's pep-club optimism, but they might have integrated Ernest Becker's seminal Denial of Death into their discussions. Becker's basic point is that all of human behavior can be traced to our inability to accept our own mortality. Cowards that we are, we not only refuse to consider our own inevitable death, but our patients', too: We duck the tough discussions, flinch and flutter and order another test, and finally leave it to a (usually much younger) colleague to sit down with the family. We don't slink away because we are bad people; we slink away because we are people.

I had never really thought before about how morticians cope with death in their own family.

By the way, I also had a conversation recently with someone with a lot of insider knowledge of the medical business world, who assured me that being a retail pharmacist with your own business in Australia is one of the most lucrative jobs around.

It doesn't seem particularly stressful, either. Is it too late for me to become one?