In the five years I spent at medical school, I learned a lot about death. My classmates and I spent endless hours in a darkened lecture theatre, trying to understand the many and varied ways in which a body can malfunction. From flaws and failures on a microscopic, cellular level, to the signs and symptoms of thousands of diseases, which appear to lurk on the sidelines waiting to wage war against us. There were times it felt quite miraculous that human beings managed to survive at all.

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In workshops, surrounded by real equipment and what were quaintly referred to as “fake patients” we acted out crash calls and emergency situations. We attempted to revive plastic dummies and sewed up oranges to hone our suturing skills.…