Dealing with Doctors, Denial, and Death
A Guide to Living Well with Serious Illness
By (author) Aroop Mangalik
Publication date:
13 January 2017Length of book:
274 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442272804
Often when death is the inevitable and impending outcome of a health diagnosis, doctors are reluctant to discuss alternatives to treatment, feeding into a culture of denial that can result in expensive, ineffective, and unnecessary over treatment that may or may not extend life but almost always damages the quality of life. Here, a seasoned doctor and researcher looks at the ways in which we are accustomed to treating illness at all costs, even at the expense of the quality of a patient’s life. He considers our culture of denial, the medical profession’s role in over treating patients and end of life care, and the patient’s options and role in these decisions. The goal is to help patients and families make informed decisions that may help the seriously ill live better with their illnesses.
This profoundly empowering book will help people make informed decisions about their lives and medical care, especially those who have a life-threatening or life-changing illness themselves or have a family member living with one. Incorporating specific questions for patients to ask their doctors and discuss with their families, the book provides an analysis of various forces that influence our decision-making. The book also examines the professional, psychological, economic, and social pressures that influence physicians treating seriously ill patients, including those that lead doctors to recommend treatments that may be futile. The book concludes with resources that seriously ill patients and their families can call upon to give them support and assist with the logistical, emotional, and spiritual challenges of end-of-life care.
This profoundly empowering book will help people make informed decisions about their lives and medical care, especially those who have a life-threatening or life-changing illness themselves or have a family member living with one. Incorporating specific questions for patients to ask their doctors and discuss with their families, the book provides an analysis of various forces that influence our decision-making. The book also examines the professional, psychological, economic, and social pressures that influence physicians treating seriously ill patients, including those that lead doctors to recommend treatments that may be futile. The book concludes with resources that seriously ill patients and their families can call upon to give them support and assist with the logistical, emotional, and spiritual challenges of end-of-life care.
'Accepting death and making the time before death peaceful and comforting is one of the best gifts we can give to ourselves, our family, and our loved ones,' says oncologist and medical ethicist Mangalik as he takes on a big and often avoided topic in his debut book. His goal is to empower patients to avoid unnecessary medical treatments and to 'prepare you and your family for you to have a comfortable, peaceful death.' He educates readers on all aspects of the end of life, including accepting the inevitability of death, understanding why doctors over-treat—one reason is their 'refusal to accept failure'; another is 'competitiveness and ambition'—and resisting the urge to demand unrealistic treatments. There is a great deal of helpful information in these pages, on topics such as interpreting statistics and end-of-life directives. Among many good points the author makes is that patients may 'go for a treatment based on the best possible scenario' without understanding that 'improvement of heart function by x percent' might not actually make the patient feel better.... Readers will find much of value.