Death education: a must for Chinese children

As a doctor, I witness death every day. I thought I knew enough about death, but it took the death of my father when I was 24 years old to make me realise that I didn’t know anything about death. 7 years of medical education taught me how to save lives, but no one told me how to face death. Parents stand as the veil between us and death, and only when they depart do we truly confront mortality. Only when we are truly exposed to death do we experience the helplessness, fear, and overwhelm of facing death. I started to wonder if we need death education to teach us how to face death so that we don’t panic when we face it.