EBOOK: Death and Medical Power: An Ethical Analysis of Dutch Euthanasia Practice PDF Download

Author: Henk ten Have
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335227295
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
How have Dutch debates on end-of-life care developed so differently from most other countries, finally resulting in the legalization of euthanasia? What are the relevant legal, medical and ethical dimensions of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide? What lessons can be learned from the Dutch experience with euthanasia? In all modern countries a good death and relief of suffering are important issues of public debate. The bioethical debate in the Netherlands is unique since it has been focusing on the issue of euthanasia for more than thirty years. This book describes the debate, explains its origins, and analyses its development, resulting in the legislation of euthanasia. It also presents data on the medical practice of euthanasia with examples of cases. Death and Medical Power details the evolution as well as the complexities of the legal responses to physician involvement in euthanasia. The authors analyze the ethical debate concerning euthanasia, discussing the pros and cons of medical termination of human life. The book concludes with a section on the lessons to be learned from the Dutch experience. This unique study will be of relevance to all clinicians and other professionals involved in end-of-life care, to health policy makers and educators, as well as anybody else interested in the ethics of euthanasia.

Author: Maria-José Blanco
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782384340
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The social and cultural changes of the last century have transformed death from an everyday fact to something hidden from view. Shifting between the practical and the theoretical, the professional and the intimate, the real and the fictitious, this collection of essays explores the continued power of death over our lives. It examines the idea and experience of death from an interdisciplinary perspective, including studies of changing burial customs throughout Europe; an account of a“dying party” in the Netherlands; examinations of the fascination with violent death in crime fiction and the phenomenon of serial killer art; analyses of death and bereavement in poetry, fiction, and autobiography; and a look at audience reactions to depictions of death on screen. By studying and considering how death is thought about in the contemporary era, we might restore the natural place it has in our lives.

Author: Jeffrey P. Bishop
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268075859
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
In this original and compelling book, Jeffrey P. Bishop, a philosopher, ethicist, and physician, argues that something has gone sadly amiss in the care of the dying by contemporary medicine and in our social and political views of death, as shaped by our scientific successes and ongoing debates about euthanasia and the “right to die”—or to live. The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying, informed by Foucault’s genealogy of medicine and power as well as by a thorough grasp of current medical practices and medical ethics, argues that a view of people as machines in motion—people as, in effect, temporarily animated corpses with interchangeable parts—has become epistemologically normative for medicine. The dead body is subtly anticipated in our practices of exercising control over the suffering person, whether through technological mastery in the intensive care unit or through the impersonal, quasi-scientific assessments of psychological and spiritual “medicine.” The result is a kind of nihilistic attitude toward the dying, and troubling contradictions and absurdities in our practices. Wide-ranging in its examples, from organ donation rules in the United States, to ICU medicine, to “spiritual surveys,” to presidential bioethics commissions attempting to define death, and to high-profile cases such as Terri Schiavo’s, The Anticipatory Corpse explores the historical, political, and philosophical underpinnings of our care of the dying and, finally, the possibilities of change. This book is a ground-breaking work in bioethics. It will provoke thought and argument for all those engaged in medicine, philosophy, theology, and health policy.

Author: Wesley J. Smith
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 145877841X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
When his teenaged son Christopher, brain-damaged in an auto accident, developed a 106-degree fever following weeks of unconsciousness, John Campbell asked the attending physician for help. The doctor refused. Why bother? The boy's life was effectively over. Campbell refused to accept this verdict. He demanded treatment and threatened legal action. The doctor finally relented. With treatment, Christopher's temperature subsided almost immediately. Soon afterwards he regained consciousness and today he is learning to walk again. This story is one of many Wesley Smith recounts in his groundbreaking new book, The Culture of Death. Smith believes that American medicine ''is changing from a system based on the sanctity of human life into a starkly utilitarian model in which the medically defenseless are seen as having not just a 'right' but a 'duty' to die.'' Going behind the current scenes of our health care system, he shows how doctors withdraw desired care based on Futile Care Theory rather than provide it as required by the Hippocratic Oath. And how ''bioethicists'' influence policy by considering questions such as whether organs may be harvested from the terminally ill and disabled. This is a passionate, yet coolly reasoned book about the current crisis in medical ethics by an author who has made ''the new thanatology'' his consuming interest.

Author: Sheri Fink
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307718972
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 602

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning book that inspired an Apple Original series from Apple TV+ • A landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina—and the suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice—from a Pulitzer Prize–winning physician and reporter “An amazing tale, as inexorable as a Greek tragedy and as gripping as a whodunit.”—Dallas Morning News After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs. Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting by Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink, unspools the mystery, bringing us inside a hospital fighting for its life and into the most charged questions in health care: which patients should be prioritized, and can health care professionals ever be excused for hastening death? Transforming our understanding of human nature in crisis, Five Days at Memorial exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals how ill-prepared we are for large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, Entertainment Weekly, Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Star WINNER: National Book Critics Circle Award, J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Ridenhour Book Prize, American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award, National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Award

Author: H. ten Have
Publisher: Facing Death
ISBN: 9780335217564
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This text describes the debate on euthanasia in the Netherlands, explains its origins and analyses its developments. Ethical issues about the pros and cons of medical termination of human life are run throughout the text.

Author: Rana Awdish
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250119227
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
A riveting first-hand account of a physician who's suddenly a dying patient, In Shock "searches for a glimmer of hope in life’s darkest moments, and finds it.” —The Washington Post Dr. Rana Awdish never imagined that an emergency trip to the hospital would result in hemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume and losing her unborn first child. But after her first visit, Dr. Awdish spent months fighting for her life, enduring consecutive major surgeries and experiencing multiple overlapping organ failures. At each step of the recovery process, Awdish was faced with something even more unexpected: repeated cavalier behavior from her fellow physicians—indifference following human loss, disregard for anguish and suffering, and an exacting emotional distance. Hauntingly perceptive and beautifully written, In Shock allows the reader to transform alongside Awidsh and watch what she discovers in our carefully-cultivated, yet often misguided, standard of care. Awdish comes to understand the fatal flaws in her profession and in her own past actions as a physician while achieving, through unflinching presence, a crystalline vision of a new and better possibility for us all. As Dr. Awdish finds herself up against the same self-protective partitions she was trained to construct as a medical student and physician, she artfully illuminates the dysfunction of disconnection. Shatteringly personal, and yet wholly universal, she offers a brave road map for anyone navigating illness while presenting physicians with a new paradigm and rationale for embracing the emotional bond between doctor and patient.

Author: Gary Null
Publisher: Axios Press
ISBN: 9781607660064
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
"Cites published research demonstrating that the American medicine system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US." -- P. [4] of cover.

Author: Committee on Care at the End of Life
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309518253
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
When the end of life makes its inevitable appearance, people should be able to expect reliable, humane, and effective caregiving. Yet too many dying people suffer unnecessarily. While an "overtreated" dying is feared, untreated pain or emotional abandonment are equally frightening. Approaching Death reflects a wide-ranging effort to understand what we know about care at the end of life, what we have yet to learn, and what we know but do not adequately apply. It seeks to build understanding of what constitutes good care for the dying and offers recommendations to decisionmakers that address specific barriers to achieving good care. This volume offers a profile of when, where, and how Americans die. It examines the dimensions of caring at the end of life: Determining diagnosis and prognosis and communicating these to patient and family. Establishing clinical and personal goals. Matching physical, psychological, spiritual, and practical care strategies to the patient's values and circumstances. Approaching Death considers the dying experience in hospitals, nursing homes, and other settings and the role of interdisciplinary teams and managed care. It offers perspectives on quality measurement and improvement, the role of practice guidelines, cost concerns, and legal issues such as assisted suicide. The book proposes how health professionals can become better prepared to care well for those who are dying and to understand that these are not patients for whom "nothing can be done."

Author: Nicholas A. Christakis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226104713
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
This groundbreaking book explains prognosis from the perspective of doctors, examining why physicians are reluctant to predict the future, how doctors use prognosis, the symbolism it contains, and the emotional difficulties it involves. Drawing on his experiences as a doctor and sociologist, Nicholas Christakis interviewed scores of physicians and searched dozens of medical textbooks and medical school curricula for discussions of prognosis in an attempt to get to the core of this nebulous medical issue that, despite its importance, is only partially understood and rarely discussed. "Highly recommended for everyone from patients wrestling with their personal prognosis to any medical practitioner touched by this bioethical dilemma."—Library Journal, starred review "[T]he first full general discussion of prognosis ever written. . . . [A] manifesto for a form of prognosis that's equal parts prediction-an assessment of likely outcomes based on statistical averages-and prophecy, an intuition of what lies ahead."—Jeff Sharlet, Chicago Reader "[S]ophisticated, extraordinarily well supported, and compelling. . . . [Christakis] argues forcefully that the profession must take responsibility for the current widespread avoidance of prognosis and change the present culture. This prophet is one whose advice we would do well to heed."—James Tulsky, M.D., New England Journal of Medicine