To Die Well: Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life [Hardcover]

Sidney Wanzer (Author), Joseph Glenmullen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 12, 2007

The knowledge provided in this book is both comforting and powerful. Patients who know their right to refuse treatment and the legal ways to bring about death if pain or distress cannot be alleviated will be spared the frightening helplessness that can rob their last days of meaning and connection. Drs. Wanzer and Glenmullen do not shy from controversy. They make clear what patients should expect of their doctors, including the right to enough pain control even it shortens life. They also explain the legal ways hasten death that are possible for anyone, and clarify the controversies now surrounding those that require a doctor’s help. Compassion and reassurance blend with direct, honest fact in this book that every one of us should have before it is needed for ourselves or our families.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A leader in the rigiht-to-die movement, Wanzer advocates measures that allow patients to control decisions about end-of-life treatment and ensure a peaceful death. . With the help of Harvard Medical School faculty member Glenmullen (The Antidepressant Solution), Wanzer, himself the former head of Harvard University Law School Health Services, provide clear legal and medical guidelines for the terminally ill and their loved ones who are facing these decisions. Drawing on case histories, the author outlines the rights of patients, advises them on how to appoint a health care proxy and on ways to refuse unwanted treatments. Wanzer also supports opting for only comfort care, in which the focus is on minimizing pain and making patients comfortable. . Although he empasizes the need to differentiate between a terminally ill patient’s rational decision to end his or her life and suicidal depression, Wanzer argues that when someone is in uncontrollable pain with no hope of improvement, hastening death—through large doses of morphine, refusal of fluids or inhaling helium—should be an option. Wanzer and Glenmuller clearly delineate a patient’s rights, including the right to refuse treatment, and provide information on appointing a health-care proxy, among other options. They provide a wealth of information on a matter most of us would rather not think about.
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Review

"A careful, well-organized, thoughtful explication of the 'turning points' patients and families face when serious illness strikes." -- World Right-to-Die Newsletter, Summer 2007

"A guiding light on the turbid road to comfort, calm and choice in the last days of life....written for patients and their families and caregivers in a determined attempt to shed revealing light on what contributes to a peaceful death and what does not." -- Metapsychology Online Reviews, 10/23/07

"An essential addition not just for medical libraries, but for general-interest collections." -- Midwest Book Review, May 2007

"Clear, logical, and practical...More useful than the many other recent books on death and dying...influential." -- Library Journal (starred review), 3/1/07

"Takes a reasonable and reassuring approach to all the uncertainties of the inevitable end... A calming aid." -- Infodad.com, 4/26/07

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1 edition (March 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738210838
• ISBN-13: 978-0738210834
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,123,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Medical commonsense at last !, April 10, 2007

By 

Derek J. Humphry "Journalist & author" (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: To Die Well: Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life (Hardcover)

At last! Two doctors have written a right-to-die book with the patients' interests first. Very readable by the lay person, bundles of good advice on how a patient's best interests should be protected, and straightforward reporting on euthanasia and assisted suicide. Recommend for instant reading, and filing away for future problems. -- Derek Humphry ('Final Exit')

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It promises to be an essential addition not just for medical libraries, May 11, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Die Well: Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life (Hardcover)

TO DIE WELL: YOUR RIGHT TO COMFORT, CALM, AND CHOICE IN THE LAST DAYS OF LIFE comes from a leader in the right-to-die movement, and a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who offer insights on turning points in a dying patient's life: one when no reasonable expectation of a cure is possible, the second involving hastening death - the subject of this book. TO DIE WELL focuses on patient rights, physician involvement, and how to stay in control of advance directives. It promises to be an essential addition not just for medical libraries, but for general-interest collections.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars To Die Well: excellent book - but is it practical?, October 17, 2008

By 

joseph itiel "unconventional gay author" (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Die Well: Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life (Paperback)

As a card-carrying member of two organizations advocating euthanasia, I am gratified that two MDs took the trouble to write a comprehensive book about the subject. They discuss the moral, legal, and the how-to of this controversial subject. Especially significant are the chapters guiding readers about their right to refuse food and hydration, and using helium to bring about their self-deliverance.

Dr. Wanzer is a compassionate physician. He describes his hour-long discussions with patients and their caregivers in their homes and at hospitals. He often refers to the rights of dying patients to dismiss their non-cooperating physicians even when they are already in a hospital, and choosing a more empathetic doctor. The sad reality is that doctors stopped making house call quite a while ago, and found a way around treating their patients in hospitals. They are adamant about seeing patients in their offices for only 15 minutes, which allows precious little time to discuss the various options and methods to exit this world. Medicare (and the majority of dying patients carry this insurance) does not even compensate physicians for discussing questions about imminent death.

On page 145 the authors describe how to "avoid unwanted resuscitative measures." Absent clear instructions prepared beforehand, they advocate that the family avoid calling 911. But if that has been done, they suggest calling the patient's physician to deal with the responding emergency team. In over four decades of living in San Francisco, I have never had physicians answer my call personally. When I was lucky, they returned my call after office hours. Having called 911 makes it is essential for the family to speak to the doctor the moment they are connected to the office. Every second counts to prevent the responding team from commencing resuscitating the patient. That simply won't happen.

Likewise, the suggestion that patients who refuse food and water instruct the hospital staff not to check their vital signs or administer antibiotics when the need arises is extremely unlikely to be followed.

In summary, this pioneering work needs a companion book on how to deal with the present medical realities.