It's my life: Death notices, obituaries and the departure lounge

Abstract

Would you like your death notice to appear in the JRSM? I'm guessing you would. Beginning in 2012, we will publish death notices each month for members of the Royal Society of Medicine. Family members and friends do not need to send in death notices because we will receive the information about deaths from the RSM's membership department. Our purpose is to share this important news with colleagues and acquaintances that might be otherwise unaware. But there's more to a life than a line in the JRSM. Death notices are the first step in our publication of obituaries, which we expect will be mostly of RSM members but will also touch on ‘the lives and deaths, careers, foibles and crimes of the good, the bad and the simply famous’, as the Telegraph likes to describe obituaries. Clearly, many RSM members have also been good, bad, and even famous at various times. To begin with we will rely on you to submit obituaries of friends or relatives. Our aim will be to publish all obituaries of RSM members, either in print or on the JRSM website, to reflect the RSM's multidisciplinary and international membership. We will be more selective in publishing obituaries of non-RSM members, and only publish those about health professionals who have had a significant impact on medicine and healthcare. An obituary that you submit should be no longer than 200 words, and we might edit it down further depending on space limitations. If it is particularly interesting, we might ask you for more words. Full name, including maiden name, dates of birth and death are essential information that should accompany an obituary. Ideally, too, obituary writers will include a cause of death and a picture. We appreciate that any contributions received will be written at a sensitive time, and will help as much as possible, but we do ask that contributors follow our guidance to ensure publication. We are open to publishing obituaries about deaths from this month onwards. Death notices and obituaries are well-established in newspapers and some medical journals. True to the spirit of JRSM and the willingness of the medical professions to address death, we won't stop there. Many publications prepare obituaries of important personalities in advance. JRSM will go one step further by inviting health professionals who are prepared to enter the departure lounge, a chance to write their own obituary in advance and read it in JRSM. We'll only publish the best and we will begin in experimental mode to see how authors and readers, friends and foes respond to this new section. Perhaps nobody will dare tempt fate? It's your life, you choose.