Mortality and medicine: forms of silence and of speech.

Silence can be harmful to patients, their loved ones, and doctors within the contexts of illness and bereavement. I draw from my experience with my son's illness and death to discuss five forms of silence--the silence around the experience of critical illness; the silence between life and death; the silence of doctors; the silence of the dead, and the silence of the ill--and of speech that may emerge in response to these silences.