Sage Palliative Medicine & Chronic Care

This episode features Professor Raymond Voltz (Department of Palliative Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Center for Integrated Oncology Aachen Bonn Cologne Duesseldorf (CIO ABCD), Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Center for Health Services Research, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany)   What is already known about the topic? The wish to hasten death is frequent in patients with serious illness and can associated with immense burden, potentially leading to suicidality or a wish for assisted suicide. Many patients retain their will to live throughout their entire illness trajectory, even in palliative stages and at the end of life. In some studies, both phenomena are found to be negatively correlated, yet simultaneous expressions of both a high wish to hasten death and a high will to live are possible.   What this paper adds? We confirm the