A critical care/palliative care specialist describes hard cases at the end of life, admitting times when she has been unclear about how to advise families making difficult decisions about taking loved ones off of what she describes as the “end of life conveyor belt” of extreme measures seen in emergency rooms. From NYT book review: “Medical training fosters a heroic model of saving lives at any cost. American can-do optimism assumes all problems can and should be solved. Both doctors and patients tend to subscribe to a ‘more is better’ philosophy. If technology exists, surely it should be used. Physicians’ fears of litigation plays a part, as do patients’ fantasies of perpetual life. For too many, death remains unthinkable and unspeakable.” A 25-minute documentary that features her and shows some of these kinds of conversations is available on Netflix (“Extremis,” 2016)
Access
Details
Language: English
Type of Story: Book
Medium: written
Contributed by: Health Story Hub Team ( health-storyhub@uiowa.edu )
Citation:
Zitter, J. (2017). Extreme measures: Finding a better path to the end of life. Avery.