The Art of Dying Well

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This episode of the Art of Dying Well podcast features the remarkable Emma O’Brien from Leo's Angels. We learn how Emma channelled her grief, tech skills, and a highly-skilled female entrepreneurial network to turn the dial on Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP).

Tragically, Emma and her family lost their much-loved son Leo to SUDEP when he was just 11 years old. To honour Leo's memory, she founded Leo's Angels to drive technological innovation to address the critical gaps in epilepsy care that they experienced living with and caring for a child with epilepsy.

Despite her warm appreciation of the many supportive healthcare professionals, Emma had to navigate a system that was far from joined up and functioning.

Listen to how Emma refused to let her own grief and pain win the day, and instead used her skills and contacts to push technology-driven solutions to transform and improve patient outcomes.

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On this episode of The Art of Dying Well podcast we're bringing you a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation with Dr Libby Sallnow about death, dying, and the growing global movement to bring communities back into the heart of end-of-life care.

Dr Sallnow is a palliative care doctor and academic who is Associate Professor and Head of Department of the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department at University College London. 

She continues to practise clinically in community settings for the NHS in London, and has spent her career asking a deceptively simple question: why do we treat death as a shocking event that couldn't be anticipated, when it is one of the few truly universal human experiences?

"Death - dying - will affect all of us in our own mortality," she says. "It will affect many of us through caring and grief and bereavement. The fact that there's not more discussion, preparation, thought, acknowledgement really has always shocked me."

Today we're talking about new public health approaches to end-of-life care, compassionate communities and social approaches to death, dying and loss. 

Dr Sallnow also discusses her role as the first author of the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death: bringing death back into life. As you can tell, we've lifted the subtitle of that commission for our podcast.

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It's Holy Week for the world's 2.4 billion Christians. As such, it's a great time for us to meditate on how sacred music and sacred art accompany us on the road to Calvary to the foot of Christ's Cross and beyond.

The life, Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus have provided rich and provoking subject matter for composers and artists for many hundreds of years, so for this 'Art of Dying Well podcast', we're joined by priest and art afficionado Father Patrick van der Vorst. Where do we start with the ebullient Fr Patrick? Three years a priest, but in a former life he was a head auctioneer, entrepreneur, Belgian TV personality, and an investment-securing Dragons' Den contestant!

He is also the founder of the bewilderingly good Christian.art.

For this podcast episode, we're covering four main areas. Sacred music and how it serves as a soundtrack to life, death and everything in between, the auction room and mortality - an extraordinary segment that includes the extraordinary valuation of a painting that was found in a convent dining room - beauty, faith and art and how it links to a life beyond this one, and finally what us Catholics call that solemn and holy period - the Sacred Triduum, the incredible drama of Christ's journey to the Cross, his Passion, death, and Resurrection.

All this and more on the first 'Art of Dying Well' podcast of Spring.

Suggested links to the art and music mentioned on this podcast.

Music

Stabat Mater
Sir James Macmillan

St Matthew Passion
Johann Sebastian Bach

Artwork

La Pietà
Michelangelo
St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City

Massacre of the Innocents
Peter Paul Rubens
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Scenes from the Passion of Christ
Hans Memling
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

The Descent from the Cross
Rogier van der Weyden
Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Stations of the Cross
Pray with us - Fourteen 'Tableaux Vivants'

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For this, the first episode of 2026, our 'Art of Dying Well' podcast steps away from the usual interview format to bring you a special interfaith panel discussion titled 'Dying to Live'. Contributors from six major faith traditions - Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Christianity - shared their insights on dying, death, and bereavement.

Moderated by Associate Professor Maggie Doherty, Lead at the Centre for the Art of Living and Dying Well at St Mary’s University, this discussion not only explored how different religious and cultural practices are observed in end-of-life settings, but also presented findings from their recent community-based participatory research on death literacy and end-of-life care.

You'll hear from Ruth Jacobs representing the Jewish community, Shamim Merali from the Muslim community, Shobha Sharma from the Hindu community, Simon Romer from the Buddhist community, Harr-Joht Kaur from the Sikh community, and Christina Ronayne from the Christian community. 

The Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Reverend Bernard Longley, opens our discussion, and the Right Reverend Patrick McKinney, Bishop of Nottingham and Lead Bishop for Interreligious Dialogue for the Catholic Church in England and Wales, offers concluding reflections.

Whether you're a healthcare professional, someone supporting a loved one through their final journey, or simply interested in how different traditions approach this universal human experience, this conversation offers wisdom, compassion, and practical insights.

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When a loved one or close friend dies, there are many practical matters to deal with – giving notice of death, funeral arrangements, and all manner of things that are very emotional and sometimes quite jarringly 'clinical'. More often than not, you're shell-shocked, not quite yourself. It's a very difficult time.

At the Catholic parish of Our Lady Star of the Sea in Whitley Bay near Newcastle, they have developed something special: a Consolation Team that walks alongside grieving families during one of life's most challenging moments.

For this 'Art of Dying Well' podcast, we talk to parish priest Monsignor Andrew Faley whose primary concern is to best meet the needs of his parishioners at this difficult time. He is very collaborative with the lay people in his community and sidesteps the common approach of "Leave it to Father" when it comes to funeral planning and accompaniment.

The Consolation Team grew naturally from the parish's pastoral care work, and we're delighted to be able to talk to two skilled parishioners from the team who work closely with Fr Andrew - Joe and Pauline.

Parishioners tend to have been in parishes rather longer than priests, and relationships have often built up which can be very helpful in supporting grieving families.

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In this episode, Professor Sonia Kumar, founding Executive Dean of Medicine at St. Mary’s University's new School of Medicine, shares her vision for a more compassionate, values-driven approach to medical education. 

She discusses the importance of human connection, spirituality, and supporting both patients and doctors through death, dying, and grief. 

With moving stories from her career as a GP, Professor Kumar explains how the new school will prepare future doctors to care for the whole person — body, mind, and spirit — during and at the end of life.

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The world is aging rapidly. People are living longer. Everyone wants their death to be calm, peaceful and reconciled - ideally at home, and in the presence of family and loved ones.

End of life care, and in particular, specialised palliative care, is increasingly important and can radically enhance quality of life for both patients and their families. But how can you explain the merits of this compassionate care when in some countries, the sheer mention of the D-word is so taboo it can be interpreted as wishing ill on the very person you want to help?

This is the case in parts of East and South East Asia. Many countries have reached, or will soon reach, super-aged status. That is the UN definition for a country where over 20% of its population is aged 65 or older. Singapore is projected to become a super-aged society in 2026, so extolling the virtues of palliative care in a culture that would, perhaps, rather not have the conversation about death and dying is a significant challenge.

For this Art of Dying Well podcast, we speak to Dr Su Lin Yeo, an Associate Professor of Communication Management at Singapore Management University. Professor Yeo has conducted ground-breaking research on palliative care communication in Singapore. We have a fascinating discussion about how cultural taboos in Asian societies about death and dying can make for difficult end-of-life conversations. We talk about how Professor Yeo's research has provided valuable insights that have improved communication strategies on this tricky subject.

We also investigate how knowledge, attitude, and receptiveness can inform public health communication and advance the understanding of palliative care in Singapore.

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Understanding the shock, pain, and anxiety that comes after a terminal diagnosis is often best articulated through first-person stories. For the first Art of Dying Well podcast of 2025, we're speaking to Matt Parkes about how he cared for his dad, Jeff, at the end of his life.

Jeff became aware something was seriously wrong health-wise in 2011. Something had changed. Something felt different. He had a number of episodes where he would lose his balance, and eventually he was diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), a rare brain condition that causes problems with movement, vision, speech, and swallowing.

Not wanting to 'diminish', Jeff decided he wanted to end his life and was initially actively suicidal. Matt, a Catholic, managed to steer him away from that course of action - with his wife’s loving help - and spent many years as Jeff's primary carer.

This was obviously a very difficult time, but in those final years, there were remarkable, poignant moments of love and reconciliation that never would have experienced had he followed his initial desire to end his life.

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Since the dawn of time, people have been asking those huge existential questions: What comes next? What happens to us after we die? These questions have preoccupied artists, writers, thinkers, medics, teachers, religious leaders – pretty much all of us at one time or another. 

Art and the Afterlife was an event held at The Exchange, a theatre in Twickenham run by St Mary’s University. It was part of an ongoing project exploring the many ways people understand and reflect on death and the afterlife with a view to improving our shared literacy around death - particularly in end-of-life contexts.

This 20-minute podcast was recorded just before the three panelists stepped out on stage. We spoke to ebullient art historian Lynne Hanley, former Sotheby’s auctioneer and founder of the brilliant christian.art website, Father Patrick van der Vorst, and the knowledgeable, and ever-wise Baroness Sheila Hollins who, as well as discussing her series of marvellous word-free picture books, also shared her granddaughter’s award-winning and poignant artwork that looks through Mary's eyes as she mourns Jesus on the cross.

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With parents, grandparents, and guardians all getting into the flow of the dreaded autumnal 'back to school' routine, it seemed appropriate for us to revisit a topic we first looked at back in September 2021 - bereavement in education.

Earlier this year, St Mary's University and The Art of Living and Dying Well (note our new name) held a summit to gather experts from across the sector to examine how death literacy can be improved in our schools and colleges, and how policies and training can be shaped to ensure that knowledge and visibility of a young person's grief lies at the heart of our response. 

For this 'Art of Dying Well' podcast, we want to build on the conversations started at the summit. You'll hear four important voices – a primary school teacher, a director of Initial Teacher Training at a university in the east of England, and two young pupils who suffered a bereavement early in their lives.

With thanks to:

Daniel and Matthew, primary school teacher Paige McCarthy, and Jenny Fogarty, Director of Initial Teacher Training at Anglia Ruskin University.