Seton Hall University
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
On
Thursday, April 29th, Dr. Lydia Dugdale of Columbia University will give a lecture entitled: On Lonely Deaths: COVID, Community, & the Lost Art of Dying Well, which will be moderated by Dr. Bryan C. Pilkington of Seton Hall s School of Health and Medical Sciences. This event is a part of IHS Bioethics, The Dignity Series: Online, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Catholic Studies and the IHS Library.
History may well record the infliction of lonely dying as the greatest tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic. To mitigate virus spread and conserve PPE, facilities introduced severe visitor restrictions. Families were prohibited from gathering, and the most vulnerable suffered physically and mentally. This talk explores the ethics of pandemic-induced lonely dying. It recalls an earlier plague, when dying was inescapably a community affair, and proposes that we reclaim this lost art of dying well.