Facing Death
نویسنده
چکیده
Public discussion and debate concerning legal, ethical, philosophical, and emotional aspects of death and dying have slowly gained prominence over the past decade. However, parallel discussions among physicians regarding their perspectives toward their dying patients have remained more subdued and less visible, repressed within a culture of hi-tech medical care that often perceives patient death as failure. In this light, Facing Death, according to editor Howard Spiro, represents an attempt to specifically address the concerns of physicians and nurses about patient death, particularly emphasizing those philosophical and spiritual issues for which medical professionals receive little formal training. The book is derived from a colloquium held in April 1994 at Yale University School of Medicine, at which physicians, philosophers, historians, and clergy were invited to share their thoughts and experiences regarding medical and cultural responses to death and dying. Facing Death is a collection of twenty-two chapters by twenty-two authors who spoke at the colloquium. Following the structure of the colloquium, the book is divided in two parts. The first eleven chapters come under the heading "Witnessing Death: The Medical Battle." In this section, eleven health care professionals tackle issues ranging from euthanasia (Alan Astrow), hospice (Florence Wald), and limitations in medical technology and intervention (Eric Krakauer, Sherwin Nuland), to personal perspectives regarding death and dying in children (Dianne Komp), in the elderly (Joanne Lynn), and in the AIDS era (Peter Selwyn, Alvin Novick). The last eleven chapters share the heading "Framing Death: Cultural and Religious Responses." The mostly non-medical authors in this section mainly discuss mortality from varying cultural and religious perspectives, points of view. With such broad agendas and only about ten pages allotted for each essay, it is impossible for any of the individual authors to offer a comprehensive review of his or her chosen subject. However, what the essays do offer in aggregate is a remarkable mosaic of thought-provoking, often very personal ideas regarding ars moriendi in the past and present , here and elsewhere. In the first section of the book, many of the physician-authors relate their own experiences with death, seen from perspectives of the medical student, resident, and attending (as a soon-to-be medical intern, I found Eric Krakauer's essay on "A Resident's Perspective" to be particularly revealing). Some of the anecdotes sadly illustrate the ongoing failures of the medical profession to relieve the suffering of patients who are beyond the reach of pharmacological cure …
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ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine
دوره 69 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 1996