I saw this excellent PBS series a few years ago and think it should be mandatory for everybody. It goes where this thread is trying to go, a place uncomfortable for so many people.

It is by Bill Moyers and is called "On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying." Description from website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/onourownterms/

"There is a great divide separating the kind of care Americans say they want at the end of life and what our culture currently provides. Surveys show that we want to die at home, free of pain, surrounded by the people we love. But the vast majority of us die in the hospital, alone, and experiencing unnecessary discomfort. Bill Moyers goes from the bedsides of the dying to the front lines of a movement to improve end-of-life care in ON OUR OWN TERMS: Moyers on Dying. Two years in production, this four-part, six-hour series crosses the country from hospitals to hospices to homes to capture some of the most intimate stories ever filmed and the most candid conversations ever shared with a television audience."