Customer Reviews

Planning for Uncertainty: A Guide to Living Wills and Other Advance Directives for Health Care

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The author's comments are right on target. If you want to debate the reasons to have these documents, weigh ethical considerations, and write a values statement, this is the book for you. But if you buy the book already convinced you need these documents and what you want is a detailed list of suggestions, customized wording, state-specific information and forms, this book is disappointing.

An excellent book that highlights how and why one can make decisions in end of life treatment. The book correctly sets aside the idiosyncracies of state forms (these are free from any doctor's office), and gets to the heart of _why_ to discuss this topic. This book is very helpful in starting and encouraging a conversation between family members and health care providers about what is important to the individual before and when the chips are down.

John David Doukas, MD & William Reichel, MD
Planning for Uncertainty:
A Guide to Living Wills and other Advance Directives for Health Care

(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, UP, 1993) 147 pages
(ISBN: 0-8018-4670-6; hardcover)
(ISBN: 0-8018-4671-4; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: KF3827.E87D68 1993)

An elementary presentation--using question-and-answer format--
of the basic facts about Advance Directives.
Generic forms are included at the end of this volume.
This book is probably too simple for most readers.
But it could be a place to begin
for someone who knows nothing about 'living wills', etc.

A revised and expanded edition has been published.

If you would like to read better books on Advance Directives,
search the Internet for the following exact phrase:
"Books on Advance Directives for Medical Care".

James Leonard Park, medical ethicist