What medical dramas get right about dying with Katherine LaNasa, Tembi Locke, and Nikki Boyer

0:03This is Ted Health and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter. Outside of this podcast, I'm the founder of a nonprofit called Endwell, and our mission is to make the end of life a part of life, not something we avoid, something we prepare for, talk about, and then approach with care. If you've listened to this show for a while, you know this is a topic that I care deeply about. One of the many interesting things about this topic is that for all our aversion to death, it's actually everywhere. It's all over pop culture, especially in our movies and TV shows. But the stories and images we often see aren't always empathetic or even accurate.

0:47And often they obscure, sensationalize, or even dehumanize this very universal experience. I think that's a problem. For decades, death on screen has looked very different from death in real life. In an analysis conducted on U.S. primetime network and streaming TV shows over 2015 and 2016, shooting, stabbing, poison, and beating together made up 49 % of depicted TV deaths, while illness was just 4.3%. In 2023, my organization, Endwell, published research that we conducted in collaboration with USC's Norman Lear Center, where we explored what death on television looks like. We looked at more than 140 ,000 pieces of scripted TV from 2010 to 2020, and we found that words like murder and killing are used up to 82 times more often than terms like palliative care or advanced directive.

1:47Turns out hospice is rarely shown on TV, and when it is, it's often a backdrop or somebody else's story. Our research also showed that in TV episodes depicting hospice, patients themselves speak very little. On average, they account for just 2.7 % of the dialogue. Most are portrayed as passive. Most are white. Our findings also show that grief is mentioned often, but it's rarely explored in depth. And this matters because stories shape culture. They shape expectations. They shape whether we talk to our families about what matters most. When we only learn what dying looks like from stories like the ones on our TVs, it can give us unrealistic or maybe one-dimensional expectations.

2:38And this can even shape the choices that we make when real life forces these conversations onto our doorstep. So we spent the last few years working to change that and encourage TV writers and showrunners to include more nuanced and accurate storylines into their shows. At our annual Endwell Summit in Los Angeles last November, I hosted a live conversation called Death Goes Primetime, How Pop Culture is Changing Everything. The roundtable focused on how television and storytelling are reshaping the way we live, care, and connect through life's most universal experiences. I was so honored to sit down with three extraordinary storytellers who are helping us change the narrative around death and dying.

3:23It was Tembi Locke, actress, author, and executive producer of Netflix's hit series From Scratch, Nikki Boyer, the creator of Dying for Sex on FX and a Hulu production, and Catherine Lanasa, Emmy award-winning actress who plays charge nurse Dana on the acclaimed medical drama The Pit. Each of their projects brings humor, humanity, and emotional truth to illness, caregiving, and loss. Together, we explored what happens when death steps out of the shadows and into primetime. And today, we're sharing that conversation with you on TED Health. Stay tuned for our live conversation from the Endwell Summit, coming up after the short break.

4:13Here's our live conversation from the Endwell Summit. What a stage here. I'm so excited to see you ladies. So for so long, death was the storyline that we skipped, the episode that we turned off, the dinner table topic that made everyone suddenly change the subject. But I think something's shifting here. From scratch to dying for sex to the pit, stories about illness, loss, care, and connection are showing up with humor and heart and real humanity. In a study that we did with the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, people who watched or listened to thoughtful portrayals of serious illness or end-of-life care were far more likely to have real conversations with the people they love about advanced directives, about what matters most, and how they want to be supported.

5:05In other words, these storylines aren't just entertainment, right? And Catherine Lanasa, my goodness, the pit is just extraordinary. I mean, really, right? We're so honored to have you. Thank you. Nikki Boyer, Dying for Sex, the podcast, the show. Oh, my goodness. You know I love you. Thank you. I love you. And Tembi, my dear, from scratch. It's gorgeous. Truly. I'm really so honored to have this conversation with you all. So let's talk about how storytelling is changing, not only how and what we think about death, but how we live through it. I want to start with what lit the match. And you all told stories that most people would run from, right?

5:50The intimate, the messy, the real. And Catherine, I want to start with you. The pit brings illness and family and caregiving into primetime in a way that we rarely see. Was there a moment that you realized, oh, this is not just entertainment. This is going to touch people's real lives. Yeah, I think one of the things, particularly as it pertains to death and dying is that I feel like when we see these stories in television we get to see a 360. So so often when we're experiencing them in our own life we maybe have an agenda or something a way that we want something to happen and someone else in our family has another way they want it to happen or things are getting overlooked or whatever and I think it's healthy for people to get to see all sides of the story like when Mr.

6:35Spencer's children like one of them wanted to intubate him against his own wishes, but really just because she wanted to keep him alive, you know, and the way that they dealt with that. You know, I've had experiences in my own life where it's funny, I think the older the children are, when their parent dies, the more they're in denial that they're dying. I had, you know, two experiences like that. So I really appreciated that. In the very first audition scene, one Dr. Langdon that I did before I even got on the show, he was saying something like why doesn't he just get the person out of the room it was a teenager that had died from a drug overdose a young college student he says you know then he can actually help somebody and i said he is helping somebody he's helping you know these two parents that can't admit that their child is dead you know that are standing they're praying over their own child because they can't admit that he's gone and that was just before i even had the job i thought that was so interesting and also the fact that they allowed Dr.

7:34Robby to take these parents through all like testing and doing things even though he knew he was brain dead he allowed them that process and it was so compassionate and interesting you know that he allowed that I thought that was really cool and I know you and well he advised on the pit so I'm sure we all appreciate that yeah yeah and you all did an incredible job. I mean, my goodness, showing that 360 view of it all. Very realistic, I will say. Temvi, from scratch, asked you to bring your own love and loss and grief to the screen. What helped you say yes to sharing something so deeply personal?

8:12And how did you find the courage to trust that your private story could hold space for millions and millions of others? Thank you for that question. I think my why for saying yes to it being more than the book that I had already written, which I knew was my story, in the way only that I could tell it. When you adapt something for screen, it's going to change. It's a different medium. It's a larger canvas. It's going to reach in a different way. And so I really asked myself why, but I also knew that I had in this an opportunity to tell a very universal story from the point of view of the caregiver and the family.

8:59And I felt that was worth whatever it might bring up for me because in doing that I might be able to create a show that could do the very thing that I didn't get to have in real life. So it would be healing, which is to say I felt that as much as my personal story and I was serving up my love, my life, my family, I also knew it was kind of everybody's story. And by the time you get to do something on screen, you really are reaching for the universal in the hopes that you can make change. In the hopes that, you know, I remember we all have seen Shirley MacLaine in terms of endearment, right? and when she's like in the hospital, get her more morphine, she needs more and more brain, you know.

9:47That was what I thought it all, that's what it had to look like in a hospital. It just had to look like a parent clenching, screaming for help and I thought what if we had something on screen that showed something different. Yeah, you did that, yeah. Oh, Nikki. Hi. Hi, honey. Hi everybody. Oh my gosh, dying for sex is raw, It's intimate. It's wildly honest and funny and heartbreaking all at once. And what was the moment that you knew that Molly's story, your best friend, needed to be shared, even knowing how vulnerable it would make you, right? And what told you that the world was ready to receive it?

10:25I don't think anything told me that the world was ready. And can we... is this PG? I don't know. No! Say whatever you want. I didn't really give a shit if the world was ready to be honest. I think what I knew was because I was in the car with her and she was telling me about what was going on with her. She obviously had her terminal diagnosis. She was dating and exploring with her body and I just remember thinking there's something here. We were outside of Trader Joe's on Hazeltine in the valley trying to find parking. And I said, I think there's a show here and I think it's called Dying for Sex.

11:05And she just put her hands on the seat and said, yes. And oh, I could feel her with me right now even. I felt like that something else gave me that permission. Her obviously, but something else. And I was like a dog with a bone from that moment on. Because it's also easier to tell somebody else's story than it is to tell your own so I could kind of hide. But it's interesting you brought that vulnerability up is that the more I dove into her story, the more I had to crack myself open. And so I think what gave me permission, I think because I couldn't really find a job doing anything else seriously.

11:43Oh, I love hearing how these stories came into the world. That's so powerful. And it leads me right into something that I've been thinking about. Even in the hardest moments, each of your projects make space for light, right? And what I love is how grounded and alive they all feel. They're honest and human and so funny and messy. And they remind us that even in loss, people still reach for connection, for laughter, for something that, you know, feels like taking a deep breath, right? And so I want to talk about that balance. And Catherine, the pit walks this wonderful line between heartbreak and humor, especially in the way that the care team, including the nurses, is portrayed.

12:23How did you and the creative team think about bringing in those lighter moments without losing the seriousness of the story? And what have you heard from nurses or families seeing themselves on screen? What feedback have you gotten? You know, I think the pit tries to go for reality. You know, I think at its heart, when I asked John Wells what he wanted, was it like a documentary? And he said, no, a documentary identifies the subject. He said, I don't want to feel like you're inside it, right? And I think we were just talking like this exists in life. I've been a big part of two deaths where I was with the person while they were dying for a while and they died.

12:59And, you know, I was telling my grandmother, oh, Minnie, you've just been the best grandmother. And then she just gave me this look and she goes, where's Jean? You know what I mean? Like these things, it's just, I have a thousand of these, you know, like these things happen. They are funny. Right and so and if we can't like I can also remember It's like she really wanted to go home something that you guys advocate more talk about right and You know her adult children were so afraid to let her go home because she wasn't back to walking because she'd been hospitalized now for a couple weeks and Anyway, she had to drink this pomegranate juice.

13:38I don't know what it was about the pomegranate juice and I Knew my dad was afraid to have her go home And I just said I looked at her one day and my grandmother was really tough I never told her what to do and I said, Minna, you listen to me. You better drink this pomegranate juice if you want to go home because they say you need it or whatever, like get this pomegranate juice down. She goes, Catherine, it's palm granite. Look it up in Webster's. Oh my gosh. You know, I mean, this is life, this is real life. And so I think having been through enough deaths, my own cancer journey, you know, being in the hospital, this is how it is and so like why not just take those breaths otherwise I think the show would have been too heavy and then you know to the second part of the question I can't tell you how many doctors and nurses have come up to me in real life, friends and neighbors that work in the community and also people online, just they feel so seen you know and I was thinking about that I was thinking about things that I've had to deal with in my own life that caused me grief or trauma and you know sometimes when they come up you get to have a little cry about it and you know tears healed the soul right and so I think that they get to revisit something like the death of a patient someone was telling me about like when a kid dies in the hospital it's just a terrible day and we're showing that they bear this on the regular and I think that's healing for them to feel seen and I also think they get to process a little more of their grief when they view the show.

15:15Yeah. Yeah. Tembi, what sorts of responses have stayed with you from viewers? Has someone shared that your work changed how they think about dying or living? Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's a gift. And you know you've reached someone when they take time out of their day to send a message that says, you helped me have a conversation with my dad about what's happening with my mom. You taught me how to help my daughter. I now know what to tell my name. I mean, this is why we do and why storytelling matters and why storytelling on the screens matter in such a profound way. Because with the dialogue, in an actual scene, you can literally give language.

16:04You can spoon-feed language to people. you know, that they can then take to their doctors or take to their neighbor or be with their child. And we really understood that when we were writing from scratch and we were in the writer's room and our episode seven and our episode eight, which are like right in the throes of all the meaty stuff that happens. I certainly was like, what would I have wanted to hear? what didn't I hear and what did I need to hear this is our opportunity to say it and so when I hear back from in the dms and send me your dms because I like them and the emails because it's just it's a reminder that we're all in this shared human experience together storytelling like the stage.

16:56It is medicine work. It's medicine work. Yeah. Thanks. And Nikki, your listeners and viewers form this incredible community around dying for sex. What goes through your mind when you realize that your storytelling might literally shape how people prepare for their own end of life? Listen, I can't take credit for all of it. I had a team of producers and writers and people that were in the writer's room that were going through cancer and chronic illness and so many people that came around to help tell this story in a way where it didn't always match the truth but we knew it was what needed to happen in order to land with the masses to crack everyone open at the same time right and so you make sacrifices but I don't think I ever thought about what the ripple effect would be but I am so proud and I feel so good about myself for carrying the torch of like giving people an example of what things can look like because I didn't know what it looked like until I went through it but I think in order for people to give themselves permission sometimes they have to see a sliver of it somewhere whether it's in a poem or it's in a painting or it's in a movie and I want to do more of that because I think if we see it we give ourselves permission to feel it and think about it.

18:13And then it kind of subconsciously becomes one of our tools. And then when we're thrown into it, we're like, oh, I think I know what to say here. And so I just feel my menopause brain doesn't really remember what the question was, but I feel really proud of something.

18:34We'll be right back with more of my interview after this quick break.

18:56Of course, none of this impact happens unless someone or many someones, right, says yes to telling these stories in the first place. So I love to go behind the scenes for a moment because Because the courage isn't just in the storytelling, it's in the getting it made, right? And so, Catherine, this hit could have easily been seen as too heavy or too real for prime time. Who championed the show early on? And then what conversations, if you know, did you have about authenticity, especially about portraying nurses and family caregivers and the emotional realities of illness that the show just did such an amazing job of?

19:32Well, I don't exactly know who championed the show because it kind of, I think it kind of lit fire and got going really quickly. I think HBO wanted to do a show or Warner's wanted to do another show with John. And John and Noah had gotten so much feedback from doctors and nurses post COVID. And there was just so much unaddressed stress that doctors and nurses went through and were never really, you know, never really giving any care, never really had any pause. They just, and they just kind of kept on going and the toll that that's taken on them. So that and the constant pressure and growing pressure and the growing issues that they face.

20:10So I think they really wanted to shine a light on that and to tell it in a new way. Yeah. But I suffer from the same thing as Nikki. Oh, no. You're going to get made. You answered it, right? What was the second part? Conversations about authenticity, about portraying nurses and family caregivers. And, oh, wait, I had a really good idea about what was I telling you about? What were we talking about, right? You're asking me to remember something? What? We're also normalizing menopause here today. Yeah, when's that? You're welcome.

20:46Well, they remember what they were talking about. You're talking about the nurses and what the nurses did versus the doctors. Oh, yes, exactly. I remember. There you go. Okay, so I studied with real nurses. I went down to county. There was a woman named Kathy Garvin that I studied with. I mean, I just got to shadow her and she was available to ask questions. We've done some work with the Rape Treatment Center and I, anytime I can delve in with a nurse, particularly in their workplace, I will. In Pittsburgh, I dealt with the nurse there and heard her stories. Not dealt with, but like, you know, we got to know each other and then we went out and had coffee and, you know, I heard someone say one time, like a podcaster, and she was like, you know, you never know what you're gonna see when you go to the crime scene.

21:25And that's how I feel about going to the emergency department. You don't know what you're going to see. You get to see how they actually react to things. And I think portraying a nurse on television accurately is so much about the tone. It's just like the tone of it, the vibe, the way that they are. It's like 15 years ago when the hospice nurses were with my ex-husband, my son's dad, who I spent a lot of months with when he was dying. And I learned so much from them. It's this kind of compassionate detachment. and it was that steadiness along with deep compassion that I really tried to put into Dana.

22:06I knew that, you know, that they weren't freaking out, that they could bear a lot, and that it was kind of a, it feels like it's kind of a calling. I didn't know, but I was like an inadvertent death doula. Like, I realized with my ex-husband when he was dying that I was very able to be present for it and that I wasn't you know afraid and that I wanted to be there and I considered it an honor and I learned so much about what that looks like when people are dying that when my grandmother was dying I felt of greater use because I was like oh you can leave like I can you guys can go take a nap I got this like even when they're hallucinating and really kind of scary stuff's going on and also people look really scary when they're dying a lot of times you know they look scary and so but that calm that they had I think it gave me a lot of confidence and I think I definitely used that calm that I learned from the palliative care nurses with the compassion and with the the way that they brought in the family and like a good ones will bring in the family member and explain what's going on and saw how helpful and useful important that is so I wanted to show a nurse like that and you really did that I absolutely love it and I'm a huge fan of nurses as everybody knows.

23:20Yes. Now I want to talk about something that sits underneath all of this and that's vulnerability. Sharing these stories comes with a cost and also a gift and there's something really radical I think about turning personal pain into public conversation. Tembi, what did that vulnerability cost you and what did it give you? It's interesting because I have a hard time answering the question only because at this stage looking really at the timeline I see it as having expanded me yeah because I think what it cost me was this idea that maybe my grief was solo or I was alone in it that's kind of how when I started writing the book I thought well this is I've been here, I didn't know enough people in my life intimately who had walked quite the same path.

24:14So being vulnerable, which was scary, and I was trembling in my boots, and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm selling all the stuff. I had to let go of this idea that any of us is really ever alone in this, even if we haven't yet met the person who can help us feel less alone. And so I feel that the vulnerability ultimately the thing it's given me is I know the strength not only of sort of my own heart and the capaciousness of that but I really know the power of community yeah like I really know the power of community because there is no way I could have done any of it not lived it not written about it not rewritten about it not filmed it, not shared it, without community.

25:02And that connection. And talking about, you know, nurses, shout out to Kathy Winteringham, wherever you are, she was our home nurse there at the end. And her steadiness, her fortification to be present made me step up. Like I was like, oh she's there okay i don't know how i'm gonna get there but okay i'm gonna i'm gonna meet try to meet her where she is because she was holding space at a higher vibration than i knew i was capable of yeah and then that allowed me to do that for my daughter yeah so the vulnerability is like the core ingredient to like do the big beautiful stuff yes nikki when somebody reaches out to you and says your story made me feel less alone which I'm sure you've heard over and over what does that mean to you how do you hold that responsibility?

25:58It means everything yeah because I think Molly felt very alone and I think at times she wanted to to share so that she felt less that way and to know that after she passed I got to continue to share that with other people and that they would express to me via DM because it all goes down in the DM You learn so much about what people are going through and you realize how universal this is. And I think one of the, it means the world to me. And I think there were two stories that just reminded me that it can take different shapes. Like there was a gay couple who were experiencing hospice together.

26:34One of the guys was passing away and they were watching, dying for sex together in their hospital bed while he was passing. And they took a picture of themselves and sent it to me and said, we're with you and Molly. and I just thought I can't believe he let me in on that beautiful moment in his husband's life and that she is now part of that and somehow I am part of that and we're all part of that. It just reminded me of how beautiful and big this all is even though it feels so personal at the time and so tiny. It's like this is my little life but and then there was another gentleman who reached out and said I'm a truck driver and I went to listen to Diane for Sex.

27:13Not what I expected. He did. I know, right? And then he said, I haven't spoken to my mother in 10 years and I pulled over the truck and I called her today. Wow. And so the story of Molly's mother and her mending fences, it means everything to me and I will never ever tire of hearing those stories. You can't. I will be on my deathbed being like, tell me more, tell me more. So I want to look forward for a moment and you've all shown that pop culture isn't just a mirror, it's a map. It shows us who we can be. Katherine, you've helped nurses and families, you've helped bring them into the spotlight in such a grounded way.

27:52When you think about stories set in hospitals or around caregiving, what feels important to get right moving forward? And where do you see room for TV in deepening that conversation? Well, I do love that people have told me that patients are being more kind to nurses in the emergency department. Thank you. Having seen the pit, they're like, it's okay, we know what you guys are under. As opposed to like, when am I gonna get seen, you know? So sort of understanding that's not necessarily even the fault of the ED, but what was the other part? Do you see room for TV in deepening this kind of conversation?

28:32No, to be honest with you, I think that there's some stuff that's going down, like as it pertains to death, like... Like for instance when my grandmother was dying. So she spent 30 hours hallucinating, right? And then she's finally stopped hallucinating. But because it's time to take her blood pressure or whatever, they flip on all the lights, you know, and come into the room and it's like she's a hundred and a half. We have plans for births now, like how we want our birth to go. We do want an epidural. We don't. We want this. We want that. But it'd be really nice if we could sort of start bringing some of that thoughtfulness into the conversation around death.

29:17Just other things, like I remember she had to, again, it was like they were going to make her go get her exercise that very same morning. It's like she's, you know, maybe she could rest. I don't know. She's been hallucinating for 30 hours, which is kind of like us having a seizure. It's really intense on the body. So just the fact that there was kind of almost zero thought that we just follow a protocol and it just didn't, the dying process in the hospital that I was in didn't seem all that patient-centered. So I think expanding, yeah, some of those conversations. Yeah, I love that. So as we look ahead, I'm reminded that culture change happens one conversation, one story, one brave person at a time.

30:01And if there's one thing that our research keeps showing, it's that stories do what data alone can't. They open us, they move us, they help us live more honestly. I just want to say, Catherine, Nikki, Tembe, thank you for the thought and the care that you bring to your work. And for using your craft to make the unspeakable speakable. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was me with Nikki Boyer, Tem B. Locke, and Catherine Lanasa at the Endwell Summit in 2025 in Los Angeles. The Endwell Summit brings together storytellers, healthcare professionals, advocates, and changemakers for conversations about illness, caregiving, grief, and the end of life.

30:48The stuff we all face but rarely talk about. You can watch the panelists' shows on streaming services right now. Dying for Sex is available on Hulu, From Scratch is on Netflix, and The Pit is streaming on HBO Max. Endwell is my non-profit working to change how we talk about and experience the end of life. We believe every end-of-life story can teach us how to live more fully and intentionally right now. Through gathering storytelling and practical resources, Endwell creates space for honest conversations about illness, caregiving, grief, and dying. The goal is simple, to help make the final chapter one marked by dignity, love, and even joy.

31:35You can find out more at endwellproject.org. That's E-N-D-W-E-L-L project.org. And that's our show for today.

31:49thank you so much for listening ted health is a podcast from ted and i'd love to hear your thoughts about this episode send me a message on instagram at shoshana md this episode was produced by me shoshana ungerleiter and jess shane edited by alejandra salazar and fact checked by Vanessa Garcia-Woodworth. Special thanks to Maria Lages, Farrah Degrange, Daniela Balarezo, Constanza Gallardo, Tansika Sangmarniwang, and Roxanne Highlash.