The Deathbed Doctor: Weeks Before Death, Patients Start Having Visions! | Dr Christopher Kerr

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

We've interviewed 1,500 people as they're about to die.

Christopher Kerr (0:02)

And what our research has shown is nearly 90% of people start to have very intense dreams or visions as they get closer to death, and it's unlike anything they've ever experienced. And what's fascinating is these events don't resemble delirium. When we ask them to scale it zero to 10 on the degree of realism, it's always a 10 So it feels like this actually happened.

Steven Bartlett (0:24)

Tell me about those people.

Christopher Kerr (0:25)

Would it help to see a video? So after doing this for 30 years, what I've come to understand is we've lost our way with dying. There's such a lack of information and that void is overwhelmingly filled with fear and mistruths, compounded by the fact that doctors don't have these discussions.

Steven Bartlett (0:42)

Can you list them for me?

Christopher Kerr (0:44)

First, I don't see people bringing up regret towards the end of their life.

Steven Bartlett (0:47)

They're not thinking about, do they regret something?

Christopher Kerr (0:50)

No, hell no, no, it's gone. Death is this unbelievably truthful place. You're stripped to the bare bones of who you are. And if you think of the best version of yourself, it was never achieving something. It was being a son, it was being a brother, it was being a friend. And then the big myths are that pain is expected, and that's actually not true.

Steven Bartlett (1:09)

It's less painful than people think.

Christopher Kerr (1:10)

Oh gosh, by a mile. But it's damning how little conversations there are to address that issue. And then next, this is one that fascinates me. You're gonna see why.

Steven Bartlett (1:19)

And also, we have these six handwritten cards of lessons you've learnt from caring for the dying. We'll go into the full list, but from everything you've experienced, do you think there is life after death?

Christopher Kerr (1:29)

This is probably the most remarkable thing of all. So I think...

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Dr. Christopher Kerr, you've spent three decades of your life experiencing something that most of us probably spend our lives trying to avoid. What is it you've done for the last three decades?

Christopher Kerr (2:26)

I was trying to avoid it too, but more by accident, I ended up becoming a hospice doctor.

Steven Bartlett (2:32)

What does that mean?

Christopher Kerr (2:34)

A hospice doctor cares for that individual who is no longer deemed treatable.

Steven Bartlett (2:39)

So you've spent 30 years caring for people that are going to die shortly?

Christopher Kerr (2:45)

Yes.

Steven Bartlett (2:46)

And you started interviewing them?

Christopher Kerr (2:48)

Probably 1,500 at this point.

Steven Bartlett (2:51)

Why did you start interviewing people that were about to die?

Christopher Kerr (2:54)

Because their perspectives matter. I arrived at a hospice completely unprepared to be a doctor of the dying. Medical school prepares you really to defeat death, not to care for those who are dying. But my colleagues, particularly in nursing, were much more attuned to what the actual patient was experiencing. What I've come to understand is what the patient perspective is the one that matters.

And that when you start to see patients as people, you start to understand that they have these rich emotional and personal lives and that's what matters at the end of life.

Steven Bartlett (3:29)

How much research have you done? Because I've got, I think, 15 research papers here that you've published.

Christopher Kerr (3:34)

Yeah, we've done a lot. And we do very important things. So we rule out confusion states. We've done studies on post-traumatic growth to see whether within these negative experience of dying was there actually positive gain. We've looked at the effect on children.

Steven Bartlett (3:49)

When children die?

Christopher Kerr (3:51)

And we've looked at the effect of these things on bereavement. Those left behind, how do that influence their bereavement?