"And it was back in the mid-1980s, and as I point out in a piece, that was when we are spending about eight percent of our gross domestic product on health care. And even then, we had the impression that so much of the excessive, aggressive medical treatment that took place at the end of life was not only unnecessary but it was cruel"
About this Quote
The intent isn’t just to argue that overtreatment is wasteful. “Unnecessary” would be enough for a policy debate; Dooling adds “cruel,” insisting the issue is ethical, not merely economic. His phrasing also smuggles in a quiet collective complicity: “we had the impression.” It’s a soft accusation. No villains named, no doctors singled out, but a whole culture implicated in equating more intervention with better care, even when the patient’s experience suggests the opposite.
As a novelist, Dooling’s power move is narrative framing: the 1980s become a baseline memory, a moment when denial was still possible. The subtext is that we’ve known for decades, and kept paying for it anyway - in dollars, yes, but also in suffering that gets justified as “treatment” when it may be closer to fear management, liability avoidance, or an inability to accept limits.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mortality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Dooling, Richard. (2026, January 16). And it was back in the mid-1980s, and as I point out in a piece, that was when we are spending about eight percent of our gross domestic product on health care. And even then, we had the impression that so much of the excessive, aggressive medical treatment that took place at the end of life was not only unnecessary but it was cruel. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-it-was-back-in-the-mid-1980s-and-as-i-point-105180/
Chicago Style
Dooling, Richard. "And it was back in the mid-1980s, and as I point out in a piece, that was when we are spending about eight percent of our gross domestic product on health care. And even then, we had the impression that so much of the excessive, aggressive medical treatment that took place at the end of life was not only unnecessary but it was cruel." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-it-was-back-in-the-mid-1980s-and-as-i-point-105180/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"And it was back in the mid-1980s, and as I point out in a piece, that was when we are spending about eight percent of our gross domestic product on health care. And even then, we had the impression that so much of the excessive, aggressive medical treatment that took place at the end of life was not only unnecessary but it was cruel." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/and-it-was-back-in-the-mid-1980s-and-as-i-point-105180/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
