Vincent Dodd

Vincent Dodd began nursing in 1985. He did what he calls a “nursing residency,” by working 4 years in the Emergency Department at Charity Hospital in downtown New Orleans.

Vincent spent 21 yrs of hands-on experience and teaching in hospital emergency and intensive care units across the country. This led to his writing the book, “Suffer Less in Death.” His passion to write came from two sources. One from witnessing patients and their families suffer, believing they were doing the right thing by trying to prevent a near, unavoidable, and inevitable death. The other came from the fact that families would say, “Do everything,” doctors would write the orders, and he, the nurse, was left to perform the procedures that inflicted the pain in the attempt to extend the life of the human being whose unpreventable death was near.

He wrote “Suffer Less in Death” to address misconceptions, attempt to alleviate fears and explain about the futility of many procedures that are preformed to attempt to buy time before death. Caring for a person’s emotional and mental needs, beyond their physical body, has always been important to Vincent. This and caring for the family is just as important as caring for the body.

Vincent is available for public speaking and spends time in peoples homes the last few hours or days before death to provide general support to the dying and their family.

article for Quality of Life Care

What Do You Hope For?

A cure is one thing in which to hope. If it is our time to die, what do we hope for then?

Hope for physical comfort. The fatigue, pain, shortness of breath and nausea (among other symptoms) we see or experience can be demoralizing. Know that it is possible to live with minimal pain and discomfort. Just like in anything else we choose, there will most likely be trade-offs. Just know you have a choice. There is always something we can do, always. You may not like the options Read more

Not Accepting the Setting Sun

by Vincent Dodd

The funeral was in the hill country, west of Austin Texas, on a very bright and hot Thursday afternoon. She had lived a long and loving life with many children and grandchildren and was devoted to various charities. She outlived a husband about which the kids still love to share of his goodness.

She had fought the battle with cancer that ended with an acceptance of defeat—in time to prevent Read more

Food and the dying

Most of the time, a person who is dying does not want to eat or drink. It is hard on us who love the person, not on them usually.

I don’t believe in encouraging someone to eat or drink if they don’t want to and I don’t encourage placement of feeding tubes and IVs to give artificial nutrition and hydration to a person whose body is dying. It is the natural order of things that a person’s body dehydrates as it is dying. The dehydration of dying is normal.

I don’t know why I woke up thinking about all this, but there are some stories Read more

Take Advantage of Us

Use us, it’s something you may want to think about.

If someone you love is very ill in the ‘end stage’ of a disease process and there are no surgeries that will change the condition, think about calling a hospice. Not for the typical reason a person would call, i.e. ‘there is only 6 months to live’ but to Read more