評論
打印
Look, I had second thoughts, really,
說實話，我猶豫過
about whether I could talk about this
到底應不應該
to such a vital and alive audience as you guys.
對你們一群如此有活力的觀眾講這個題目。
Then I remembered the quote from Gloria Steinem,
但我又想起了Gloria Steinem的一句話
which goes,
她是這樣說的
"The truth will set you free,
“真相會給你自由，
but first it will piss you off."
但它會先令你難受”
So...
所以呢……
So with that in mind, I'm going to set about
所以謹記著這一點，我要開始
trying to do those things here,
試圖來談談這些事
and talk about dying in the 21st century.
聊一聊21世紀的死亡。
Now the first thing that will piss you off, undoubtedly,
首先，第一件會令你們十分不爽的，毫無疑問的，
is that all of us are, in fact, going to die
就是我們所有人，事實上，都將在
in the 21st century.
21世紀死去。
There will be no exceptions to that.
這不會有例外吧！
There are, apparently, about one in eight of you
可是根據調查，我們當中每8個人就會有1個
who think you're immortal, on surveys, but --
覺得自己可以長生不老，但是……
Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen.
不幸的是，長生不老是不可能的。
While I give this talk, in the next 10 minutes,
在接下來的這10分鐘內，就在我做這個演講的同時，
a hundred million of my cells will die,
我身體里的一億個細胞將死去，
and over the course of today, 2,000 of my brain cells
今天，我的2000個腦細胞會死去
will die and never come back,
而且永遠不會回來。
so you could argue that the dying process
所以可以說，死亡的過程
starts pretty early in the piece.
其實在這類的日常小事中就開始了。
Anyway, the second thing I want to say about dying in the
無論如何，我想說的關于死在21世紀的第二件事是，
21st century, apart from it's going to happen to everybody,
除了這件事會發生在每個人的身上以外，
is it's shaping up to be a bit of a train wreck
它對大部分人來說，就是一列好好的火車
for most of us,
最終是怎么走向撞車和成為一個殘骸的過程。
unless we do something to try and reclaim this process
除非我們做點什么，把這列火車
from the rather inexorable trajectory that it's currently on.
從它現在正向著的死亡方面前進的軌道上拉回來。
So there you go. That's the truth.
這就是我要告訴你的真相。
No doubt that will piss you off, and now let's see
毫無疑問，這會讓你非常不爽，但現在我們來看看
whether we can set you free. I don't promise anything.
可不可以讓你獲得自由并重生。但我不能向你保證什么。
Now, as you heard in the intro, I work in intensive care,
正如你們在介紹中聽到的一樣，我在ICU （重癥監護治療病房）工作，
and I think I've kind of lived through the heyday
而且我想我經歷過ICU的黃金時期。
of intensive care. It's been a ride, man.
那就像坐過山車一樣，
This has been fantastic.
那真的一直都很棒。
We have machines that go ping.
我們有很先進的設備。
There's many of them up there.
這照片上就有很多啊。
And we have some wizard technology which I think
我們有一些魔術般的技術，
has worked really well, and over the course of the time
我覺得一直以來都很好用。
I've worked in intensive care, the death rate
在我在ICU工作的時間里，
for males in Australia has halved,
澳大利亞的男性死亡率減少了一半，
and intensive care has had something to do with that.
這跟ICU特護是有關系的。
Certainly, a lot of the technologies that we use
當然，這跟我們采用的許多技術
have got something to do with that.
也有很大的關系。
So we have had tremendous success, and we kind of
所以我們取得過巨大的成功，
got caught up in our own success quite a bit,
而我們有點被自己的成功沖昏了頭腦，
and we started using expressions like "lifesaving."
所以，我們開始用一些像是“挽救生命”之類的詞形容自己
I really apologize to everybody for doing that,
為此我真的要對所有人表示歉意，
because obviously, we don't.
因為，很明顯，我們并不能救命。
What we do is prolong people's lives,
我們能做的是延長人們的生命，
and delay death,
讓死亡遲一點到來，
and redirect death, but we can't, strictly speaking,
讓死亡的過程改變一點點，但是嚴格來說，
save lives on any sort of permanent basis.
從任何永久性的角度看，我們并不能拯救病人的生命。
And what's really happened over the period of time
而從我在ICU這些年的工作經驗來看，
that I've been working in intensive care is that
事實的真相是，
the people whose lives we started saving back in the '70s,
我們在70年代，80年代，
'80s, and '90s, are now coming to die in the 21st century
90年代所救過來的人，現在慢慢開始在21世紀逝去
of diseases that we no longer have the answers to
死于我們當時沒法治愈
in quite the way we did then.
現在也一樣沒法的治愈的疾病。
So what's happening now is there's been a big shift
而最大的不同點是，
in the way that people die,
人們死亡的方式發生了巨大的轉變。
and most of what they're dying of now isn't as amenable
而大部分讓人們致死的疾病
to what we can do as what it used to be like
已經和我們當年
when I was doing this in the '80s and '90s.
在80年代、90年代處理的方法有了很大的不同了。
So we kind of got a bit caught up with this,
所以我們也有點困惑
and we haven't really squared with you guys about
而我們也沒有機會和大家分享一下
what's really happening now, and it's about time we did.
如今ICU里都在發生什么。現在就讓我們來看一下。
I kind of woke up to this bit in the late '90s
我是在90年代后期才思考這個問題的，
when I met this guy.
當時我遇到了這個人。
This guy is called Jim, Jim Smith, and he looked like this.
他叫做Jim Smith，他當時的樣子是這樣的。
