A Midwife through the Dying Process: Stories of Healing and Hard Choices at the End of Life

by Timothy E. Quill MD

Overview

Approximately two-thirds of deaths in the United States involve a doctor's partnership with an individual, whether it be for the administration of pain relief or sedation or for the act of discontinuing or not beginning life-sustaining treatment. In A Midwife through the Dying Process, Timothy Quill, M.D., explores that partnership and the complex end-of-life issues that surround physician-assisted death. Here are the stories of nine individuals and their very different endings, common only in each person's struggle to confront issues of law and ethics and to realize a "good"death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801869785
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2001
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.59(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Timothy E. Quill, M.D., is a professor of medicine, psychiatry, and medical humanities at the University of Rochester and author of A Midwife through the Dying Process, also available from Johns Hopkins.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 "A Midwife through the Dying Process"
2 Modern Medicine, Distant Drums
3 "Do You Still Love Me?"
4 It Took a Lickin' and Kept On Tickin'
5 "Another Cross to Bear"
6 Three Strikes and You're Out
7 "You Promised Me I Wouldn't Die like This"
8 Friendship and Hemlock
9 Loving Assistance
10 Partnership and Nonabandonment
Appendix
Advance Directives:
Health Care Proxy and Living Will

What People are Saying About This

Christine K. Cassel

Timothy Quill's new book provides a rich resource for teaching health care students. The lessons learned from these moving stories will be extremely important for their careers as healers and will provide them with a look into the real heart of our profession. The stories are also lessons for patients and their families, showing us the fundamental shared humanity of very different individuals who are dying. (Christine K. Cassel, M.D., Mount Sinai Medical Center)

Betty Rollin

We won't all be lucky enough to have Dr. Quill at our bedsides when we die, but we can have him as a storyteller. These stories are more than inspiring; they're important, wise, and simply wonderful to read. (Betty Rollin, author of Last Wish)

From the Publisher

Timothy Quill's book provides a rich resource for teaching health care students. The lessons learned from these moving stories will be extremely important for their careers as healers and will provide them with a look into the real heart of our profession. The stories are also lessons for patients and their families, showing us the fundamental shared humanity of very different individuals who are dying.
—Christine K. Cassel, M.D., Mount Sinai Medical Center

We won't all be lucky enough to have Dr. Quill at our bedsides when we die, but we can have him as a storyteller. These stories are more than inspiring; they're important, wise, and simply wonderful to read.
—Betty Rollin, author of Last Wish

Editorial Reviews

Quill's portraits of his own role and that of other physicians who have aided their patients in dying are direct, honest, and extremely informative . . . Many readers will see Quill's composite portrait as the best, most evocative description of a physician's appropriate role in assisting a patient who is dying, that of a 'midwife through the dying process'—a phrase he borrowed from one of his patients.
—New England Journal of Medicine

From the Publisher

Quill's portraits of his own role and that of other physicians who have aided their patients in dying are direct, honest, and extremely informative . . . Many readers will see Quill's composite portrait as the best, most evocative description of a physician's appropriate role in assisting a patient who is dying, that of a 'midwife through the dying process'—a phrase he borrowed from one of his patients.

New England Journal of Medicine