Cancer doctor thanks Bowie for helping people face death

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In this Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016 photo, Rene Rivo, a Filipino David Bowie fan, plays a picture disc of Bowie\'s Hunky Dory on a turntable at his shop in suburban Paranaque, south of Manila, Philippines. Bowie, the chameleon-like star who transformed the sound - and the look - of rock with his audacious creativity and his sexually ambiguous makeup and costumes, died of cancer Sunday, Jan. 10. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

LONDON – A British doctor who works with terminally ill people has thanked David Bowie for helping open up a conversation about death.

Bowie died of cancer Jan. 10 aged 69 and Dr. Mark Taubert says it helped him speak to one dying cancer patient about how to have “a good death.”

In a blog on the British Medical Journal website, Taubert said Bowie’s story “became a way for us to communicate very openly about death.”

Taubert’s blog was reposted on social media Sunday by Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones.

Bowie did not go public about his illness, but made a final album, “Blackstar,” that meditated on life and mortality.

Taubert said Bowie’s final acts had “had a profound effect on me and many people I work with.”

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