The Woman Who Decided to Die: Challenges and Choices at the Edges of Medicine
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...
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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. Elizabeth Williams - Library Journal Munson (philosophy of science & medicine, Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis) presents true stories of ethical dilemmas he has encountered in the course of his career. The 31-year-old "woman who decided to die" had advanced cancer and didn't want to put her husband and young children through the hassles of 300-mile trips to the hospital, so she refused further treatment. Is that a sufficient reason to refuse treatment? Each chapter starts a new story about a patient with an ethical problem. Should a college student who hears voices be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, even if it's unclear whether he or she is a danger to him- or herself? Is it wrong for a stepfather to refuse to donate a kidney to his adult stepson? Munson's stories are captivating, and each ends with a lesson in medical ethics. Though illuminating for lay readers, this probably wouldn't go at a public library. Recommended for academic and health sciences collections.
1 The Woman Who Decided to Die 12 Like Leaving a Note 113 The Agents 304 Unsuitable 565 Nothing Personal 696 "He's Had Enough" 837 Not More Equal 1038 The Last Thing You Can Do for Him 1189 The Boy Who Was Addicted to Pain 13710 It Seemed Like a Good Idea 155Notes 183
\ Library JournalMunson (philosophy of science & medicine, Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis) presents true stories of ethical dilemmas he has encountered in the course of his career. The 31-year-old "woman who decided to die" had advanced cancer and didn't want to put her husband and young children through the hassles of 300-mile trips to the hospital, so she refused further treatment. Is that a sufficient reason to refuse treatment? Each chapter starts a new story about a patient with an ethical problem. Should a college student who hears voices be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, even if it's unclear whether he or she is a danger to him- or herself? Is it wrong for a stepfather to refuse to donate a kidney to his adult stepson? Munson's stories are captivating, and each ends with a lesson in medical ethics. Though illuminating for lay readers, this probably wouldn't go at a public library. Recommended for academic and health sciences collections.\ —Elizabeth Williams\ \ \
