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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
I read this almost immediately after I finished reading The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life by Katy Butler, and it definitely improved my experience of reading Modern Death.
Starting with The Art of Dying Well, which is centered on the individual experience of going through the end of life, provided a less intimidating and more grounded/human understanding of the process of dying in America. When I started reading Modern Death, I felt more equipped to understand what Dr. Warraich was talking about and that I wasn't diving into a realm of ideas I hadn't explored before.
Modern Death provides a very thorough, multi-faceted, and well-researched look into the medical and death industries in America.
While I think I preferred the more personal approach to dying provided by the Art of Dying Well, Modern Death is a great read for anyone who is interested in more of the technical/medical side of the American medical and death industries.
Would recommend.
Starting with The Art of Dying Well, which is centered on the individual experience of going through the end of life, provided a less intimidating and more grounded/human understanding of the process of dying in America. When I started reading Modern Death, I felt more equipped to understand what Dr. Warraich was talking about and that I wasn't diving into a realm of ideas I hadn't explored before.
Modern Death provides a very thorough, multi-faceted, and well-researched look into the medical and death industries in America.
While I think I preferred the more personal approach to dying provided by the Art of Dying Well, Modern Death is a great read for anyone who is interested in more of the technical/medical side of the American medical and death industries.
Would recommend.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Family caregivers save the American health system $450 billion annually.
It’s care provided mostly by women. It consists of long hours, no pay, and high stress.
This is just one of the side-effects of medical advances that keep people alive much longer than they lived even a generation ago. And in many cases it keeps people alive in situations that are worse, even deplorable for sentient beings.
It leaves them in the alien surroundings of hospitals often without the authority to determine their own treatment, or desire to be left without treatment.
And it leaves doctors in an uncomfortable position having to negotiate conflict between family members, something they have no training in. And in many societies, doctors are the target of physical violence for who they are, for what they earn, and for sometimes just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And when the patient dies, the doctor often sees it as his or her fault.
In this book we learn that loneliness increases mortality by 50% although nobody knows why.
In the US there are now more than two million people who outlive all friends and relatives. The chief defence we have against nothingness is family and up until the end it holds up quite well, Dr. Warraich opines.
Still, modern medical science has created new challenges by keeping people technically alive when in fact they are dead. Has modern science done more to defer death than to extend meaningful life? It would seem so.
It is important for doctors to view their patients as people stuck in a place they’d rather not be.
“Death stealthily commands and controls every aspect of our lives.” This seems to hold true for the physician as for the patient.
It’s care provided mostly by women. It consists of long hours, no pay, and high stress.
This is just one of the side-effects of medical advances that keep people alive much longer than they lived even a generation ago. And in many cases it keeps people alive in situations that are worse, even deplorable for sentient beings.
It leaves them in the alien surroundings of hospitals often without the authority to determine their own treatment, or desire to be left without treatment.
And it leaves doctors in an uncomfortable position having to negotiate conflict between family members, something they have no training in. And in many societies, doctors are the target of physical violence for who they are, for what they earn, and for sometimes just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And when the patient dies, the doctor often sees it as his or her fault.
In this book we learn that loneliness increases mortality by 50% although nobody knows why.
In the US there are now more than two million people who outlive all friends and relatives. The chief defence we have against nothingness is family and up until the end it holds up quite well, Dr. Warraich opines.
Still, modern medical science has created new challenges by keeping people technically alive when in fact they are dead. Has modern science done more to defer death than to extend meaningful life? It would seem so.
It is important for doctors to view their patients as people stuck in a place they’d rather not be.
“Death stealthily commands and controls every aspect of our lives.” This seems to hold true for the physician as for the patient.
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
An important book for everyone, including all physicians and family members who are or will someday care for a loved one with progressive medical conditions.
A valuable history of how medical advances have impacted the way people view death as well as how they die. I found the first chapter on death at the cellular level somewhat challenging to read, but it is worth continuing as there are excellent chapters on many other aspects of the dying experience including the use (or not) of CPR, the burden carried by health care proxies and the debates around the concept of death with dignity. The book shines when Dr. Warraich shares personal stories and experiences, but as a whole it is very readable and illuminating on a subject that many people find hard to discuss.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
“Doctors experience death more than any other professionals do—more than firefighters, policemen, or soldiers—yet we always think about death as a very concrete construct. It’s a box on a checklist, a red bar on a chart, or an outcome in a clinical trial. Death is secular, sterile, and singular—and, unlike many other things in medicine, incredibly binary. So it was interesting to think of death more as a concept and a process than as a fact and an endpoint.”
" So many times, discussions at the end of life seemed more like a negotiation than a discussion. Silence allows emotions to equilibrate, and balance to be achieved between what the heart wants and what the mind knows. I imagined the father was thinking about his son, picturing all the memories he had accumulated of his only child, in one finite moment. When he spoke again, his voice was not tethered, and he appeared to finally understand what he really wanted to let me know about his son: “I don’t want him to suffer any longer.”
" So many times, discussions at the end of life seemed more like a negotiation than a discussion. Silence allows emotions to equilibrate, and balance to be achieved between what the heart wants and what the mind knows. I imagined the father was thinking about his son, picturing all the memories he had accumulated of his only child, in one finite moment. When he spoke again, his voice was not tethered, and he appeared to finally understand what he really wanted to let me know about his son: “I don’t want him to suffer any longer.”