What should medicine do when it can't save your life?
The modern healthcare system has become proficient at staving off death
with aggressive interventions. And yet, eventually everyone dies--and
although most Americans say they would prefer to die peacefully at home,
more than half of all deaths take place in hospitals or health care
facilities.
At the End of Life--the latest collaborative book project between the
Creative Nonfiction Foundation and the Jewish Healthcare
Foundation--tackles this conundrum head on. Featuring twenty-two
compelling personal-medical narratives, the collection explores death,
dying and palliative care, and highlights current features, flaws and
advances in the healthcare system.
Here, a poet and former hospice worker reflects on death's mysteries; a
son wanders the halls of his mother's nursing home, lost in the small
absurdities of the place; a grief counselor struggles with losing his
own grandfather; a medical intern traces the origins and meaning of
time; a mother anguishes over her decision to turn off her daughter's
life support and allow her organs to be harvested; and a nurse remembers
many of her former patients.
These original, compelling personal narratives reveal the inner workings
of hospitals, homes and hospices where patients, their doctors and their
loved ones all battle to hang on--and to let go.
