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mkesten 's review for:
Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life
by Haider Warraich
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.