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Ronald Munson

The Woman Who Decided to Die: Challenges and Choices at the Edges of Medicine 1st Edition

by Ronald Munson (Author)

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3.9 on Goodreads

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Advances in medical technology force us to struggle with new and often gut-wrenching decisions. How do we know when someone is dead and not just in a coma? Should a convicted felon qualify for a new heart? In The Woman Who Decided to Die, novelist and medical ethicist Ronald Munson takes readers to the very edges of medicine, where treatments fail and where people must cope with helplessness, mortality, and doubt. Using personal narratives that place us right next to doctors, patients, and care givers as they make decisions, Munson explores ten riveting case-based stories, told with a writer's eye for illuminating detail. These include a young woman with terminal leukemia more worried about her family than herself, a stepfather asked to donate a liver segment to his stepson, a student who believes she is being controlled by invisible Agents, and a psychiatrist-patient who prizes his autonomy until the end. Raising fundamental questions about human relationships, this is an
essential book about the very nature of life and death.

ISBN-10

019533101X
ISBN-13

978-0195331011
Edition

1st
Publisher

Oxford University Press
Publication date

March 27, 2009
Language

English
Dimensions

9.29 x 1.04 x 6.46 inches
Print length

224 pages
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Increasingly, recent medical advances blur distinctions between life and death, even between right and wrong in some instances. In an eminently accessible book, medical ethicist Munson pulls 10 morally complex cases from his professional experience, embellishes their bare bones with dialogue and characterization, and deconstructs their ethical intricacies. Should a young mother have the right to suspend all treatment for her fatal disease to spare her family personal and financial hardship? Should a convicted multiple murderer receive the same consideration for a heart transplant as a priest? How much patient confidentiality, if any, does a minor have a right to when consulting a psychiatrist? Is it coercive to deny a voluntary clinical trial participant the option of choosing which intervention, experimental drug or placebo, he or she will take? This is a slim volume despite tackling some thorny issues because Munson cuts right to the hearts of such questions and more, mincing no words and laying bare the hard-to-argue-with ethical points of each. --Donna Chavez

Review

"Munson provides a sympathetic, thought-provoking discussion of issues many of us will eventually face for ourselves, our patients, or our family members. There are no easy answers." --Science-Based Medicine

"Ronald Munson's literary talents shine in The Woman Who Decided to Die. The people who are forced to face these ethically charged decisions come to life, in contrast to the wooden case scenarios that are characteristic of the literature of medical ethics. All clinicians can profit from reading this book ... especially valuable for medical and nursing students and clinical trainees... Narrative medical ethics at its best."--The New England Journal of Medicine

"Munson's stories are captivating, and each ends with a lesson in medical ethics....illuminating...."--Library Journal

"The engaging narrative shines as an outstanding example of medical literature, and the richness of the cases will provide ample fodder for anyone who is learning to move beyond informed opinion to develop a reasoned analysis and ethically based argument. This book should be a welcomed introductory text in courses in medical ethics and is broad enough to engross those with a general interest."--Journal of Legal Medicine

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (March 27, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 019533101X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195331011
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.29 x 1.04 x 6.46 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,278,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #171 in Medical Ethics (Books)
- #970 in Sociology of Death (Books)

Customer Reviews:
13 ratings

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3.2 out of 5

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Allyson M. W. Dyar

It's My Life!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2013

Verified Purchase

I'm continuing my lunch-time reading on my iPhone's Kindle app with the book The Woman Who Decided to Die: Challenges and Choices at the Edges of Medicine by Ronald Munson. I'll start the review with what I loved about the book and then end with... well, you'll see.

As the title suggests, these are a series of essays discussing wide-ranging subjects in Medical Ethics. Each chapter covers one medical dilemma with a complete discussion of the ethics of the decision whether it is euthanasia or should patients be presented with unproven medical treatment protocols.

While the topics and subsequent examinations are thought provoking, they are approachable due to Dr Munson's ability to take these complex subjects and distill them to its essence without losing the gravity of the discussion. This isn't the type of book that my good friend (and fellow medical history/book nerd) Dr Dave Klingman would necessarily enjoy (he prefers his medical history to be less `heady') but I really enjoyed the moral discussions.

Medical Ethics is one of those subjects that really interest me even though what's right or what's wrong today may not necessarily hold true in the future. Ethics can mold itself to whatever society deems required at a particular point and time. Given how much I detested philosophy in College, I surprised myself by really getting into the ideas presented in the book given that I prefer much more concrete discussions.

But I digress... This is a great book. It's a great reminder that as much as Science and Medicine can do, the question always remains: should we? Can we? As long as we ask these questions, Medical Ethics will remain an important part of Medicine.

Now for the rest of the story.

As I mentioned above, I read this on my iPhone's Kindle app. Once again, the publishers have done a major disservice to the author. At least the formatting wasn't quite as bad as what I encountered by reading Treating the Brain: What the Best Doctors Know by Dr. Walter G. Bradley, but still, inexcusable.

Attention Publishers! I paid for this digital copy. I expect... nay, I demand that the digital copy look as good as the printed copy. There is no conceivable excuse for paragraphs to alternate between left and right justification; paragraphs that break into new paragraphs in the middle of sentences or any of that nonsense.

Again, there is No Excuse! I paid for this digital copy, so quit treating us e-readers like a pack of morons. Oxford University Press, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

3 people found this helpful

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Dr. Rui Amaral Mendes

A great book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 14, 2009

Verified Purchase

I consider this one of the most pertinent books I've read lately, especially for all those - doctors and other health personnel - who have to deal with day-to-day health-related ethical issues.
Furthermore, I also recommend this book to every concerned citizen who may be called to take a stand on issues such as euthanasia or abortion.
The author manages to give us - the reader - what I consider to be a very independent and unprejudiced approach; the cases depicted in the stories are very compelling for a humane point-view and they certainly put things into a whole different perspective.
It's certainly worth buying: I left the first book I bought in a flight to Canada and I just bought another one.

3 people found this helpful

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Joanne

Provocative read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 19, 2013

Verified Purchase

Munson uses case studies to illustrate the gut wrenching medical decsions made every day and the conflicts that naturally arise. Writted for the layman yet with a profound depth.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 24, 2015

Good book

This is a very interesting book which uses a series ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 1, 2014

This is a very interesting book which uses a series of narrative, patient-focused accounts to highlight ethical issues in modern medical practice. The stories are interesting and engaging, and many readers may relate to them, either from experiences with family and friends, or through their careers (if they are already in medicine), or through what they have read in the media. The issues presented do, or will, touch many of us eventually and so they are very important.
My one quibble - and admittedly it's a minor one - is with the book's title. Presumably it's a reference to the first patient presented in the book, but she didn't really "decide to die". Rather, for the sake of her family, she refused a harsh, last-ditch treatment effort that would have been unlikely to save her life anyway.
Overall, this book is highly recommended

Helpful

SarahK574

Something to think about

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 4, 2010

This book considers medical ethics which aren't as straightforward as they first appear. For instance, a double murderer (one of the victims being a child), received a heart transplant. A normal citizen, who could not afford insurance, did not. Human beings are inherently equal, yet prisoners receive health care because it is provided to them by the state. He suggests that a better determination of who receives a transplant is physical need.

The question of selling organs for transplant made me cringe. However, he considers that the donor family is the only party expected to behave altruistically. The organ recipient obviously benefits; doctors and hospitals earn money on the procedure. The donor family then sometimes must borrow money to bury their loved one. Many doctors have stopped live organ donation altogether because it seems weaker family members are coerced, even unconsciously, into donating their organs.

The author was friends with a radical psychiatrist who supported the philosophy of Thomas Szasz, who argued mental illness does not exist, but that society locks away people whose behavior makes them uncomfortable. It's an interesting philosophy.

Many women endured bone marrow therapy, described as "dramatic, expensive, grueling and risky," as treatment for advanced stage breast cancer. Some families went into financial ruin to pay for this treatment. It was based on medical opinion at the time and became standard treatment. Clinical testing later showed it to be ineffective.

I highly recommend this book. These are fairly new ethical questions, as many of the scenarios presented in this book weren't possible 50 years ago.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Samiah

Written in an easy to read format

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 3, 2015

Verified Purchase

Learned a lot about basic ethical issues in medicine. Written in an easy to read format. such that you can connect with the author and the subjects. Would recommend it to anyone with interest in medical treatment. The title is a bit misleading as the book is not just about one woman or just about people dying, rather about many people in many different situations.

One person found this helpful

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