Facing Death: Where Culture, Religion, and Medicine Meet [Paperback]

Howard Spiro M.D. (Editor), Lee Palmer Wandel (Editor), Professor Mary G. McCrea Curnen (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 1998

While technology for keeping death at bay has advanced greatly, people are less well informed about how to face death and how to understand or articulate the emotional or spiritual need of the dying. This work aims to help medical personnel and patients to view death as a defining part of life.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Today, dying is too often a medical and legal event rather than a natural part of life. In 1994, Yale University's Program for Humanities in Medicine and Boston's Goethe Institute brought together distinguished healthcare professionals, philosophers, historians, and clergy to explore the emotional and spiritual aspects of death. This outstanding collection of conference papers offers rich, thoughtful, often highly personal reflections on the conflict between technologically adept, life-saving medicine and the desire for a meaningful death. Physicians describe their experiences as witnesses to death?their anger and frustration when treatments fail and the pressure to cure that leaves no time for grief. Contributors also consider the meaning death can bring to the lives of the dying and survivors and explore its expression in different times and cultures. This exceptional book defines the 20th century's changing attitudes toward ars moriendi?the way of dying. Highly recommended.?Karen McNally Bensing, Benjamin Rose Inst. Lib., Cleveland, Ohio
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"How startling to the modern reader! How unusual for us, with our crash carts, defibrillators, and morphine drips, to come upon a woman who is eager to be thoroughly present in the moment of her dying, for whom dying is a sacred event, full of transcendent meaning."  D. Barnard, NEJM

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (October 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300076673
• ISBN-13: 978-0300076677
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #569,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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