Overview

While surveys show that most of us would prefer to die at home, 80% of us will die in a health care facility, many hooked up to machines and faced with tough decisions. When you, a family member, or a friend are in this situation, what should you do next? In Embracing Our Mortality, Dr. Lawrence J. Schneiderman, a physician who is our leading expert on medical ethics at the end of life, urges all of us, including health care professionals caring for people at the end of life, to face these decisions with sensitivity and realism informed by both the latest medical evidence as well as the oldest humanistic visions. Dr. Schneiderman vividly demonstrates the wisdom of this approach by interweaving true stories of his patients, current empirical research in care at the end of life, displays of the power of empathy and imagination as embodied in the work of writers like Tolstoy and Chekov, and examples of how the distortion of medical research by media, and its misunderstanding even by health care professionals, cloud the ability to think, feel, and decide clearly about mortal concerns. He ends by addressing the question implicit in all of this which is how to achieve a just and universal health care. Dr. Schneiderman proves a refreshingly honest, astringent, and life-affirming guide to thinking about the choices that we or people we love will face when we dienot if, as the technological imperatives of modern medicine can suggestand to making decisions at the end of life that respect all that has preceded it.

Full Product Details

9780195339451

Table of Contents

Reviews

This book is engaging, due in large part to the case studies and literary references. The concise arrangement of short chapters with numerous references makes the book manageable, but substantial enough to be valuable. The honest and realistic information is a welcome alternative to the inaccurate depictions of the end of life provided by the media. Doody's Notes

This book is engaging, due in large part to the case studies and literary references. The concise arrangement of short chapters with numerous references makes the book manageable, but substantial enough to be valuable. The honest and realistic information is a welcome alternative to the inaccurate depictions of the end of life provided by the media. Doody's Notes

Author Information

Lawrence J. Schneiderman, M.D, is Professor Emeritus at UCSD Medical School and Visiting Scholar in the Program in Medicine and Human Values at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. He has been a visiting scholar and visiting professor at institutions in the United States and abroad and has written more than 170 medical and scientific publications, as well as a novel and award-winning plays and short stories.

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