Documentary short produced and directed by Joel Engardio that uses narrative storytelling to ask the following controversial but necessary public policy questions:
- How can palliative care doctors help the dying live more fully?
- Can we provide better end-of-life care with less cost?
-How do we address the real issues around death and dying everyone must face?
-Can we avoid the politics of “death panels” and “pulling the plug on grandma” to have more meaningful discussions?
2012 | 9:09

Joel Engardio introduces an instructional video he produced for Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. The video documented the sensitive discussions a doctor has with a dying patient. The video applied negotiation framework to an extreme situation to help students better understand how to manage the tensions of a difficult negotiation.
2012 | 4:40

Instructional video produced by Joel Engardio for Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. The video documented the sensitive discussions a doctor has with a dying patient. The video applied negotiation framework to an extreme situation to help students better understand how to manage the tensions of a difficult negotiation.

The palliative doctors who handle end-of-life care at Massachusetts General Hospital have a key skill in common with the professors at Harvard Law School. The professors teach negotiation while the doctors negotiate life and death decisions every day.

Perhaps the doctors could learn something from the law professors who have created a framework for managing the tensions of difficult negotiations. Perhaps the law professors could learn something from the doctors, who engage in the most difficult negotiations of all.

This instructional video features documentary footage of a doctor talking to a dying patient. Later, the doctor and a professor review the transcripts to help students see what worked and what didn’t in this real-world example of a difficult negotiation.

Engardio was a student in Harvard Law School’s negotiation class as a cross-registrant from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he earned a Master in Public Administration. After Engardio graduated, the law school asked him to be a teaching assistant in its negotiation workshop.
2012 | 27:35