Death and Dying
Being Mortal by
#1 New York Times Bestseller In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering. Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.
ISBN: 9781627790550Publication Date: 2014
The Best Care Possible by
Dr. Byock, one of the foremost palliative care physicians in the country, argues that the way we die represents a national crisis. Though the vast majority of Americans would prefer to die peacefully, at home, many will spend their last days in a disease treatment system ruled by high-tech procedures and a philosophy to 'fight disease and illness at all costs.' Dr. Byock, puts a human face on the issue by telling richly moving stories-at once heartwrenching and uplifting -of people coping with the most difficult moments in their lives. As the pace of health care reform accelerates, he shows what truly excellent care can look like, and how wise and skilful doctors, nurses, and clinical teams can profoundly shape families' experiences of illness, caregiving, and loss. Told through page-turning life-or-death medical drama, The Best Care Possible is a compelling and passionate meditation on medicine and ethics. It has the power to lead a new national conversation. 'Dr. Byock's mission is to help everyone . . . find meaning, dignity, and peace in these final months of life.' Prevention magazine 'In this strikingly important book, Byock presents an agenda for end-of-life care that should serve as an ideal template on which to build out best hopes for the final days of those we love and of ourselves-and a corrective for our society.' Sherwin B. Nuland, MD, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics; author of How We Die
ISBN: 9781583335123Publication Date: 2013
Caring for Patients at the End of Life: Facing an Uncertain Future Together by
In "Caring for Patients at the End of Life: Facing an Uncertain Future Together," the author uses his wide range of clinical experience caring for severely ill patients and their families to illustrate the challenges and potential of end-of-life care. Section one utilizes the near death experiences of two patients to explore values underlying medical humanism, and then presents the case of "Diane" to explore the fundamental clinical commitments of partnership and non-abandonment. Section two explores, illustrates, and provides practical guidance for clinicians, patients, and families about critical communication issues including delivering bad news, discussing palliative care, and exploring the wish to die. In section three, difficult ethical and policy challenges inherent in hospice work, including the rule of double effect, terminal sedation, and physician-assisted suicide, are explored using a mix of real cases and an analysis of underlying clinical, ethical, and policy issues. In a final chapter, the author discusses the tragic death of his brother which occurred as this book was being completed, and how his family made the most emotionally challenging decisions of their lives.
ISBN: 1280834811Publication Date: 2001-01-01
The Case of Terri Schiavo by
After the Nancy Cruzan case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1990, and ultimately resolved by the Courts of the State of Missouri, the decision to withhold or withdraw life-prolonging nutrition and hydration appeared to many to be as noncontroversial as decisions to refuse respirators or dialysis. Even the Catholic Church held that, although there should be a presumption in favor of providing nutrition and hydration, the patient or the patient's surrogate could overrule this presumption, if either believed the treatment was disproportionate or burdensome. The Schiavo case changed all that. Although the decision to remove Terri Schiavo's nutrition and hydration was made by her husband -- her legal surrogate -- based on his wife's belief that such treatment was disproportionate, Schiavo's immediate family protested so much that the case took years to resolve. It eventually involved all branches of government at both the state and federal levels. The ethical dilemmas that such cases pose continue to stir great controversy. This in-depth examination of these dilemmas provides information and documentation from many perspectives. The editors have included a foreword by Dr. Jay Wolfson, Terri Schiavo's court-appointed guardian ad litem, as well as Dr. Wolfson's report to Gov. Jeb Bush on the case and Gov. Bush's reply; public statements by President George Bush and Senators David Weldon, Rick Santorum, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and Barney Frank; statements by the pope and other representatives of the Catholic Church on this issue; plus much medical and legal background material on both precedents to the Schiavo case and its aftermath, including the results of the autopsy report. For anyone wishing an in-depth understanding of these complex ethical issues, issues many of us will have to confront in our own families, this volume is indispensable.
ISBN: 9781591023982Publication Date: 2006-03-01
Death Across Cultures : Death and Dying in Non-Western Cultures by ISBN: 9783030188269Publication Date: 2019
Death and Dying by
Death and Dying is an important core text for students and professionals interested in developing a holistic understanding of death and dying. Chapters are replete with case studies, activities, key point boxes, and other features that enable readers to develop a sociologically informed understanding of the broad range of complex issues that underpin death and dying. Written by two established and highly respected experts in the field, it offers a thoroughgoing account of a wide range of social aspects of death and dying, filling gaps left by the traditionally narrow focus of the existing literature. By drawing the suggested sociological perspectives and highlighting the role of social policy, the authors put forward a fresh perspective of the field of thanatology. This book is a major contribution in progressing knowledge and understanding of dying and death for students and professionals in counseling, health and human services.
ISBN: 9781000175332Publication Date: 2020-09-08
Dying in America by
For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. Unfortunately, the experience of dying in the United States is often characterized by fragmented care, inadequate treatment of distressing symptoms, frequent transitions among care settings, and enormous care responsibilities for families. According to this report, the current health care system of rendering more intensive services than are necessary and desired by patients, and the lack of coordination among programs increases risks to patients and creates avoidable burdens on them and their families. "Dying in America" is a study of the current state of health care for persons of all ages who are nearing the end of life. Death is not a strictly medical event. Ideally, health care for those nearing the end of life harmonizes with social, psychological, and spiritual support. All people with advanced illnesses who may be approaching the end of life are entitled to access to high-quality, compassionate, evidence-based care, consistent with their wishes. "Dying in America" evaluates strategies to integrate care into a person- and family-centered, team-based framework, and makes recommendations to create a system that coordinates care and supports and respects the choices of patients and their families. The findings and recommendations of this report will address the needs of patients and their families and assist policy makers, clinicians and their educational and credentialing bodies, leaders of health care delivery and financing organizations, researchers, public and private funders, religious and community leaders, advocates of better care, journalists, and the public to provide the best care possible for people nearing the end of life.
ISBN: 9780309303118Publication Date: 2015-03-19
Dying in Character by
In the past twenty years, an increasing number of authors have written memoirs focusing on the last stage of their lives: Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, for example, in The Wheel of Life, Harold Brodkey in This Wild Darkness, Edward Said in Out of Place, and Tony Judt in The Memory Chalet. In these and other end-of-life memoirs, writers not only confront their own mortality but in most cases struggle to "die in character"?that is, to affirm the values, beliefs, and goals that have characterized their lives. Examining the works cited above, as well as memoirs by Mitch Albom, Roland Barthes, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Art Buchwald, Randy Pausch, David Rieff, Philip Roth, and Morrie Schwartz, Jeffrey Berman's analysis of this growing genre yields some surprising insights. While the authors have much to say about the loneliness and pain of dying, many also convey joy, fulfillment, and gratitude. Harold Brodkey is willing to die as long as his writings survive. Art Buchwald and Randy Pausch both use the word fun to describe their dying experiences. Dying was not fun for Morrie Schwartz and Tony Judt, but they reveal courage, satisfaction, and fearlessness during the final stage of their lives, when they are nearly paralyzed by their illnesses. It is hard to imagine that these writers could feel so upbeat in their situations, but their memoirs are authentically affirmative. They see death coming, yet they remain stalwart and focused on their writing. Berman concludes that the contemporary end-of-life memoir can thus be understood as a new form of death ritual, "a secular example of the long tradition of ars moriendi, the art of dying."
ISBN: 9781558499652Publication Date: 2012-12-18
End-of-Life Stories by
End-of-life experiences are often viewed in terms of only one perspective such as medicine. In this volume, a variety of end-of life experiences are presented and each case is analyzed from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. These range across a broad array of the helping professions, and disciplines such as information, law and the social sciences. The book provides a variety of narratives about end-of-life experiences contributed by members of the Wayne State University End-of-Life Interdisciplinary Project. Each of the narratives is then analyzed from several different disciplinary perspectives. These analyzes illustrate how specific end-of-life narratives can be viewed from different dimensions and helps students, researchers and practitioners see the important and varied meanings that end-of-life experiences have at the level of the individual, the family, and the community. The narratives include end-of-life experiences of individuals from a number of diverse backgrounds.
ISBN: 9780826126757Publication Date: 2005-01-01
End of Life Choices by
A book for nurses, doctors and all who provide end of life care, this essential volume guides readers through the ethical complexities of such care, including current policy initiatives, and encourages debate and discussion on their controversial aspects. dived into two parts, it introduces and explains clinical decision making-processes about which there is broad consensus, in line with guidance documents issued by WHO, BMA, GMC, and similar bodies. The changing political and social context where 'patient choice' has become a central idea, and the broadened scope of potients' best interests, have added to the complexity of decision-making in end of life care. The authors discuss issues widely encountered by GPs, nurses, and hospital clinicians. These include patient choice, consent, life-prolonging treatment, and symptom relief including sedation. Part rwo explores the more controversial current end of life care initiatives, such as advance care planning preferred place of care and death, euthanais and assited suicide, extended ideas of 'best interests', and the view that there are therapeutic duties to the relatives of Throughout their discussion the authors draw attention to loose ends and contradictions in some of the proposals. Examining the current policy of comsumerist choice, they reject its place in the health service, proposing a a realistic, fair, humane and widely adoptable system of end of life care. As knowledge of ethical theories is required in training courses, and the vocabulary of ethical theory is widespread in current discussions a substantial appendix on ethical theories and terms is available online. Written by the same authors as The Philosophy of Palliative Care: Critique and Reconstruction, which won the Medical Journalists' Association Specialits Book Award 2007, this new book for non-specialists is essential reading for all health care professionals involved in providing end of life care.
ISBN: 0191575526Publication Date: 2009-01-01
A Social History of Dying by
Our experiences of dying have been shaped by ancient ideas about death and social responsibility at the end of life. From Stone Age ideas about dying as otherworld journey to the contemporary Cosmopolitan Age of dying in nursing homes, Allan Kellehear takes the reader on a 2 million year journey of discovery that covers the major challenges we will all eventually face: anticipating, preparing, taming and timing for our eventual deaths. This book, first published in 2007, is a major review of the human and clinical sciences literature about human dying conduct. The historical approach of this book places our recent images of cancer dying and medical care in broader historical, epidemiological and global context. Professor Kellehear argues that we are witnessing a rise in shameful forms of dying. It is not cancer, heart disease or medical science that presents modern dying conduct with its greatest moral tests, but rather poverty, ageing and social exclusion.
ISBN: 9780521694292Publication Date: 2007-01-22
With the End in Mind by
For readers of Atul Gawande and Paul Kalanithi, a palliative care doctor's breathtaking stories from 30 years spent caring for the dying. Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. And for the most part, that is good news. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar, peaceful, and gentle -- if sorrowful -- transition, death has come to be something from which we shield our eyes, as we prefer to fight desperately against it rather than accept its inevitability. Dr. Kathryn Mannix has studied and practiced palliative care for thirty years. In With the End in Mind , she shares beautifully crafted stories from a lifetime of caring for the dying, and makes a compelling case for the therapeutic power of approaching death not with trepidation, but with openness, clarity, and understanding. Weaving the details of her own experiences as a caregiver through stories of her patients, their families, and their distinctive lives, Dr. Mannix reacquaints us with the universal, but deeply personal, process of dying. With insightful meditations on life, death, and the space between them, With the End in Mind describes the possibility of meeting death gently, with forethought and preparation, and shows the unexpected beauty, dignity, and profound humanity of life coming to an end.
ISBN: 9780316504485Publication Date: 2018-01-16
Health Care Quality
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Healthcare by
This book reviews the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in healthcare. It discusses integrating the principles of computer science, life science, and statistics incorporated into statistical models using existing data, discovering patterns in data to extract the information, and predicting the changes and diseases based on this data and models. The initial chapters of the book cover the practical applications of artificial intelligence for disease prognosis & management. Further, the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning is discussed with reference to specific diseases like diabetes mellitus, cancer, mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Covid-19. The chapters provide working examples on how different types of healthcare data can be used to develop models and predict diseases using machine learning and artificial intelligence. The book also touches upon precision medicine, personalized medicine, and transfer learning, with the real examples. Further, it also discusses the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence for visualization, prediction, detection, and diagnosis of Covid -19. This book is a valuable source of information for programmers, healthcare professionals, and researchers interested in understanding the applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning in healthcare.
ISBN: 9789811608100Publication Date: 2021-05-07
The Checklist Manifesto by
The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist. We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies--neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third. In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds. An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.
ISBN: 9780805091748Publication Date: 2009-12-22
Closing Death's Door: Legal Innovations to End the Epidemic of Healthcare Harm by
Closing Death’s Door explores innovative legal strategies to address the challenge of medical error. In the United States today, several hundred thousand patients die in hospitals each year because of errors in medical treatment—the nation’s third leading cause of death. The legal mechanism designed to deal with this epidemic of injury and death is the medical malpractice system. It has failed to stem the tide of iatrogenic harm. Among the reasons are the costliness of the malpractice system, its availability to only a minuscule percentage of those harmed, and decades of “tort reform” efforts that have effectively extinguished the system for all but the most egregious claims. In 1999, in To Err Is Human, the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) sounded an alarm about the toll taken by medical error. Its proposed solution—a set of reporting systems to document problems and generate data on which solutions might be based—has been a failure. The time has come for a fresh look at what the law might do to contribute to patient safety. To begin a conversation about legal innovations designed to spur healthcare system improvements directed at reducing harmful medical errors, this book explores a number of possible steps, including well-designed economic incentives to stimulate greater investment in safety; promotion of systems approaches to safer delivery of care; government regulation and surveillance in especially risky treatment contexts; and encouragement of a range of technological improvements, especially involving information technology.
ISBN: 0190668008Publication Date: 2021
The Diseased Brain and the Failing Mind by
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by The Wellcome Trust.The Diseased Brain and the Failing Mind charts changing cultural understandings of dementia and alzheimer's disease in scientific and cultural texts across the 20th Century. Reading a range of texts from the US, UK, Europe and Japan, the book examines how the language of dementia - regarding the loss of identity, loss of agency, loss of self and life - is rooted in scientific discourse and expressed in popular and literary texts. Following changing scientific understandings of dementia, the book also demonstrates how cultural expressions of the experience and dementia have fed back into the way medical institutions have treated dementia patients.The book includes a glossary of scientific terms for non-specialist readers.
ISBN: 9781350121805Publication Date: 2020
Healthcare of the Future 2022 by
There can be no doubt that digital technologies are set to become ever more intrinsic to many areas of healthcare in the future.This book presents the proceedings of Healthcare of the Future 2022, held on 20 May 2022 in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. This 2022 edition of the medical informatics conference has the subtitle and theme: Digital Health - From Vision to Best Practice! The conference explores recent advances in the deployment of digital technologies in areas such as eHealth, mHealth, personalized health and workflow-based health applications. The overarching aim of the conference is to bridge or eliminate current gaps in information with regard to outpatient care, inpatient care and the interfaces between them. The conference invited submissions for a main track and a young researchers track, and 19 papers are included here; 10 from the main track and 9 from young researchers. All papers have been peer reviewed by 2 reviewers. The papers are divided into 8 sections: advancing interoperability; semantic interoperability; medical informatics for medical research; evaluation of it influence; apps for patients and healthcare professionals parts 1 & 2; workflow based support in patient care; and research in medicine and medical informatics.Presenting an overview of developments and research aimed at improving and accelerating healthcare processes, the book will be of interest to healthcare professionals from a wide range of disciplines.
ISBN: 1643682814Publication Date: 2022-06-17
Making Healthcare Safe by
Contents: Summary of Recommendations (Table 22.4) -- Progress -- Remaining Challenges -- Shining a Light [8] -- Safer Health Care Through Transparency -- Workshop Leaders: Gary Kaplan and Robert Wachter -- Summary of Recommendations (Table 22.5) -- Progress -- Remaining Challenges -- Transforming Health Care: A Compendium -- Members -- Later Work -- The "Must Do" List -- Financial Costs of Patient Safety -- Collaboration with American College of Healthcare Executives -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 23: Now the Hard Part: Creating a Culture of Safety -- What Is Culture? -- A Culture of Safety -- Characteristics of a Safe Culture -- A Just Culture -- High-Reliability Organizations -- The Problem -- Why Changing Culture Is so Hard to Do -- How to Do It -- Examples of Success -- Virginia Mason Medical Center -- Secrets of Success -- Cincinnati Children's Hospital -- Denver Health -- Safe and Reliable Health Care -- Making It Happen -- A Role for Government? -- A "Burning Platform"? -- References -- Correction to: Everyone Counts: Building a Culture of Respect -- Index.
ISBN: 3030711234Publication Date: 2021
Positive Medicine by
When Ivan Illich published Medical Nemesis in 1975, he offered a withering critique of the medical profession and the medical model. 'The medical establishment has become a major threat to health,' he said. Nearly half a century has elapsed since then, and things have got worse. In the UK, only 5 per cent of the health budget is spent on prevention. The system is so strained that the rule is often 'one problem per consultation'. Disease management takes precedence over disease prevention, and a wider perspective on health and wellbeing is largely absent. At least once a month, one third of GPs consider leaving the profession. Patients are referred to secondary care simply because primary care cannot cope. But doctors want to practise differently. People also want more. The global health and wellness industry has stepped into the gap. It offers more holistic and whole-person approach that people seek. And it's big business. It is now estimated to be worth $4.2 trillion per annum.In this book, David Beaumont proposes a better approach. The current healthcare system is a deficit model. It attempts to address and correct the absence of health, so it is therefore more correctly termed a disease-care system. Positive medicine is an abundance model. It aims not only to help people manage illness and disease, but to enhance their health. Although this book is very specifically about doctors and patients, it will resonate with all healthcare professionals.
ISBN: 9780192845184Publication Date: 2021-10-25
Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage Weaving Ancient wisdom with Modern Knowledge by
It's time for a childbirth revolution. The modern approach to maternity care fails women, families and care providers with outdated practices that centre the needs of institutions rather than individuals. In this book, Rachel Reed weaves history, science and research with the experiences of women and care providers to create a holistic, evidence-based framework for understanding birth. Reclaiming childbirth as a rite of passage requires us to recognise that mothers own the power and expertise when it comes to birthing their babies. Whether you are a parent, care provider or educator, this book will transform how you think and feel about childbirth.
ISBN: 9780645002515Publication Date: 2021
Return on Investment for Healthcare Quality Improvement by
This book offers a comprehensive overview of performing return-on-investment (ROI) analyses for healthcare quality improvement (QI). In the United States, healthcare policy regarding physician and facility payment/reimbursement is steadily trending towards the use of "value-based" systems and away from the traditional "fee-for-service" (FFS) payment mechanisms. Healthcare professionals and organizations who have previously focused on quality metrics are now finding themselves burdened with having to define and assess value metrics, without much guidance or assistance. This volume aims to be a guide and a reference for healthcare professionals tasked with estimating and establishing ROI for QI. Chapters describe the general framework for how to perform QI; establish standard definitions of important terms, concepts, and calculations; and provide specific instructions for how to complete each step of an ROI analysis. These include: selecting a QI initiativeand identifying the associated metrics, establishing measurable, monetizable, and attributable costs and benefits, determining the appropriate scope and perspective, calculating ROI and related metrics (payback period, benefit-to-cost ratio, etc.), comparing with established benchmarks or previously published results, and interpreting the results for the intended audience. In addition, chapters offer examples of real studies (or hypothetical studies of real situations), as well as templates for several of the necessary activities that readers can leverage for their own use. Return on Investment for Healthcare Quality Improvement is a must-have resource for healthcare providers, administrators, and other professionals who work in healthcare organizations, hospitals and other healthcare settings, health systems, and residency programs seeking to obtain outside funding, as well as policy makers and administrators of federal programs.
ISBN: 9783030464776Publication Date: 2020-06-10
The Truth about Big Medicine by
Many Americans believe that their healthcare is second to none. Most patients, therefore, fail to appreciate the flaws and dangers present while receiving medical care. In fact, the American health care industry is one of the great tragedies of this country, which is now being brought to its knees by the medical industry run amuck. The Truth About Big Medicine: Righting the Wrongs for Better Health Care divulges secrets of the industry, which keep it focused on its own economic needs to the detriment of public health. The cost of American health care per person far exceeds other developed countries, yet it delivers life expectancies and infant mortalities that are shamefully ranked low among developed nations. Special interest groups and weak legislation created a "tapeworm" that continues to devour the American economy and shorten the lives of hundreds of thousands each year. Using true stories throughout, the authors illustrate that it is time for the public, students, educators, and legislators to clearly recognize medical deception and secrecy and to consider clear solutions on how they can achieve a safer health care system. A rich variety of authors with experience in revealing unsafe medical practices bring recommendations for changing health care delivery by taking an aspect of the health care system, identifying its shortcomings, and proposing ways to reduce harm plus correct the injustices. Included are discussions of imaging, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, hospital practices and procedures, and medical malpractice and negligence, among other topics. No consumer of health care should ignore the dangers; this book helps reveal them and suggests useful remedies. The authors maintain a website at http://truthaboutbigmedicine.com/
ISBN: 9781442231610Publication Date: 2014
Ethics
Mammographies by
While breast cancer continues to affect the lives of millions, contemporary writers and artists have responded to the ravages of the disease in creative expression. Mary K. DeShazer's book looks specifically at breast cancer memoirs and photographic narratives, a category she refers to as mammographies, signifying both the imaging technology by which most Western women discover they have this disease and the documentary imperatives that drive their written and visual accounts of it. Mammographies argues that breast cancer narratives of the past ten years differ from their predecessors in their bold address of previously neglected topics such as the link between cancer and environmental carcinogens, the ethics and efficacy of genetic testing and prophylactic mastectomy, and the shifting politics of prosthesis and reconstruction. Mammographies is distinctive among studies of contemporary illness narratives in its exclusive focus on breast cancer, its analysis of both memoirs and photographic texts, its attention to hybrid and collaborative narratives, and its emphasis on ecological, genetic, transnational, queer, and anti-pink discourses. DeShazer's methodology--best characterized as literary critical, feminist, and interdisciplinary--includes detailed interpretation of the narrative strategies, thematic contours, and visual imagery of a wide range of contemporary breast cancer memoirs and photographic anthologies. The author explores the ways in which the narratives constitute a distinctive testimonial and memorial tradition, a claim supported by close readings and theoretical analysis that demonstrates how these narratives question hegemonic cultural discourses, empower reader-viewers as empathic witnesses, and provide communal sites for mourning, resisting, and remembering.
ISBN: 9780472029235Publication Date: 2013
Mental Patient by
A philosopher who has experienced psychosis argues that recovery requires regaining agency and autonomy within a therapeutic relationship based on mutual trust. In Mental Patient, philosopher Abigail Gosselin uses her personal experiences with psychosis and the process of recovery to explore often overlooked psychiatric ethics. For many people who struggle with psychosis, she argues, psychosis impairs agency and autonomy. She shows how clinicians can help psychiatric patients regain agency and autonomy through a positive therapeutic relationship characterized by mutual trust. Patients, she says, need to take an active role in regaining their agency and autonomy-specifically, by giving testimony, constructing a narrative of their experience to instill meaning, making choices about treatment, and deciding to show up and participate in life activities. Gosselin examines how psychotic experience is medicalized and describes what it is like to be a patient receiving mental health care treatment. In addition to mutual trust, she says, a productive therapeutic relationship requires the clinician's empathetic understanding of the patient's experiences and perspective. She also explains why psychotic patients sometimes feel ambivalent about recovery and struggle to stay committed to it. The psychiatric ethics issues she examines include the development of epistemic agency and credibility, epistemic justice, the use of coercion, therapeutic alliance, the significance of choice, and the taking of responsibility. Mental Patient differs from straightforward memoirs of psychiatric illness in that it analyses philosophic issues related to psychosis and recovery, and it differs from other books on psychiatric ethics in that its analyses are drawn from the author's first-person experiences as a mental patient.
ISBN: 9780262544313Publication Date: 2022
Precision Oncology and Cancer Biomarkers by
This open access book reflects on matters of social and ethical concern raised in the daily practices of those working in and around precision oncology. Each chapter addresses the experiences, concerns and issues at stake for people who work in settings where precision oncology is practiced, enacted, imagined or discussed. It subsequently discusses and analyses bioethical dilemmas, scientific challenges and economic trade-offs, the need for new policies, further technological innovation, social work, as well as phenomenological research. This volume takes a broad actor-centred perspective as, whenever cancer is present, the range of actors with issues at stake appears almost unlimited. This perspective and approach opens up the possibility for further in-depth and diverse questions, posed by the actors themselves, such as: How are cancer researchers navigating biological uncertainties? How do clinicians and policy-makers address ethical dilemmas around prioritisationof care? What are the patients' experiences with, and hopes for, precision oncology? How do policy-makers and entrepreneurs envisage precision oncology? These questions are of great interest to a broad audience, including cancer researchers, oncologists, policy-makers, medical ethicists and philosophers, social scientists, patients and health economists.
ISBN: 9783030926113Publication Date: 2022-03-29
