Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine Is Complicating the Way We Die by Blair Bigham

Author:Blair Bigham [Bigham, Blair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Death & Dying, Family & Relationships, Death; Grief; Bereavement, Medical, Terminal Care
ISBN: 9781487008550
Google: 6UNYEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Incorporated
Published: 2022-09-19T18:30:00+00:00

The Death Dilemma Equation:

Technology

×

(Resuscitation Glorification + Death Denialism)

=

False Hope

False hope drives us to push on in the face of dismal odds. It means that we set aside one of the most important tools in medicine, palliative care, until, I would argue, the window for effective palliative measures has mostly closed and it is too late to undo extraordinary suffering.

I have already discussed at length the life support technology that is a precondition for the death dilemma. The roots of resuscitation glorification and death denialism have also begun to come into focus. In this chapter, I’ll dig into how hopes and fears allow micro-improvement bias to delay our deaths without improving our lives.

Jessica Zitter calls this the “

ICU

roller coaster.” Once you get on it by accepting technological life support, you get tossed around, slowly getting better with micro-improvements, quickly getting worse when hit with complications, never really knowing which twist or turn will come next and having almost no control over when the experience will end.

For doctors, a fear of failure is about more than letting down our patients and their families. It’s about our own sense of self-worth, our egos, and the very construct we build that allows us to endure the difficult moments that doctors face every day. For families, a fear of death comes not only from a fear of loss but also from an aversion to making the tough decisions technology has forced us to make for each other.

These fears have paralyzed the players who are most able to affect the death dilemma equation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.