Photo courtesy of Zen Hospice Project
April 21, 2015—The annual TED conference invites some of the world’s most accomplished and eclectic thinkers to share their findings and visions with the world. This year’s lineup in Vancouver, Canada totaled 58 speakers and included one of San Francisco’s own — BJ Miller, the executive director of the Zen Hospice Project.
Responding to San Francisco’s HIV epidemic, the Zen Hospice Project got its start back in the late 1980s. Medicine often focuses on bringing patients back to health, but that’s not always helpful if a patient is near the end. Caregivers with the Zen Hospice Project take a more spiritual approach, offering what the nonprofit calls “high touch” instead of “high tech” treatment. In this interview with KALW’s Judy Silber, Zen Hospice executive director Miller talks about the project’s ambitions to reshape medicine’s approach to death.
There may be nothing more I can do to treat your cancer, but as a human being, I can sit with you. I can talk to you. I can be there for your family. — BJ Miller
In the interview, Miller also speaks of how he relates to patients through his own personal experience with suffering due to a college accident. Click here to listen to a previous broadcast on KALW where he tells what happened and how that brought him to where he is today.
