The recent meeting, in the RCH Foundation, was attended by about 40 Alumni members and guests.
Dominic was introduced by Dr Kevin Collins, standing in for the President Dr Hugo Gold who was away. Dr Collins reminded the audience of Dominic’s well remembered performance in a Residents’ Show at RCH in early 2003, when he played “Virgil the Invaginator”, folding himself into an infant incubator.
Dominic’s presentation to the Alumni started with him reading from a poem by Claudius to the music from Schubert’s emotive theme.
His graphic talk included references to a number of infants and their families facing imminent death in difficult circumstances. He discussed what constituted a “Good Death” as opposed to many situations where death was clearly bad / painful / prolonged, etc.
Despite the rather morose subject matter he managed to make a difficult subject entertaining as well as thought provoking and finished with a lively violin solo playing a “Lament” from Scottish composer, Niel Gow.
A Podcast of this talk was recorded when it was delivered in June to an audience in Oxford
To hear this podcast click on “View in iTunes”. Then press on the Play icon to the left of “Sleep softly: Ethics, —-“.