Overview

LURCHING FROM CRISIS-TO-CRISIS IN AMERICA'S MEDICAL MORASS Philip and Ruth Barash, a long-married husband and wife, try to keep their heads above the quicksands of illness and care. Their journey is a critical and moving look at a medical system that prioritizes itself above its patients. FOR BETTER OR WORSE is the story of a man who, not through his own choice, overused the medical system, whom the system abused and who suffered a horrible dying. It's a lament about the sick state of our wildly expensive MD/hospital/pharma complex that prioritizes itself and doesn't deliver the goods for the patient. We all like to think we have good doctors, and that if we're hospitalized, we'll be competently cared for. We also like to think Santa will bring us nice presents if we've been good children. This story, unfortunately, is your lump of coal. IS THIS THE MEDICAL SYSTEM WE WANT? As the national debate on health care heats up, this may be an apt, albeit anecdotal, addition to the discussion, beyond the immediately personal: the absurd financial costs of useless consultations and interventions; the wrenching emotional costs; the lack of respect for a patient's time and convenience; above all, despite alleviation and palliation, the pain that was so rarely purged, even when healing was no longer the target: it should all be part of the conversation. DEATH PANELS To talk about death panels is clearly a provocation; but it's time to be more realistic about the many sick and elderly who might wish to exit on their own terms rather than be forced to go through the miseries that Philip endured. DYING WITH DIGNITY We all know that every story will conclude. But how? The peaceful end of fairy tales, the promised dignity in dying, was not Philip's story. Death is not the problem. That's a universal given, neutral, and we are each free to make of it what we wish. Philip's problem, and the problem many of us may be doomed to face, is the seemingly endless getting there, a dying we don't want.

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9781490314280

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Ruth Fenner studied philosophy at the City College of New York and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. In 1958 she met and married Philip Barash. She worked in creative capacities in public relations and advertising in the age of Mad Men. Later, with a sideline in residential real estate, she focused increasingly on making and teaching art (painting, ceramics, photography, ruthbarashart.com) and writing (including memoirs and a killer cookbook). The Barashes lived most of their lives in Queens, New York, with their daughter Martina and their standard poodles, Truffles, Billy, Cleo and Ella. Until Philip's death in 2012, they cherished a long and harmonious adventure together.

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