Cancer is the best way to die, says doctors

A leading doctor and former editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) has claimed cancer is the best way to die.

Richard Smith believes the opportunity to reflect on life before it ends is important and urges charities and the medical world to "stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer".

In a blog published in The BMJ, the doctor wrote that while most people tell him they would prefer a sudden death, he thinks that is very hard on the families of the deceased.

"The long, slow death from dementia may be the most awful as you are slowly erased, but then again when death comes it may be just a light kiss," he wrote.

"Death from organ failure - respiratory, cardiac, or kidney - will have you far too much in hospital and in the hands of doctors.

"So death from cancer is the best... You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion.

"This is, I recognise, a romantic view of dying, but it is achievable with love, morphine, and whisky."

The 62-year-old, who is chairman of the board of directors of medical smartphone app Patients Know Best, continued: "But stay away from overambitious oncologists.

"And let's stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death."

His comments were criticised by the charity Cancer Research.

Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, said: "Of course we are all going to die, but cancer takes far too many people far too young.

"It's only by being ambitious in our research that we can give people a measure of choice, and the more we know about cancer the more we can give people options.

"My patients are very clear about when they do and when they don't want treatment, and they would much prefer me to be ambitious than nihilistic."