Central Skagit Library District

"Up to the 1970s, most Americans died swiftly: of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, or in accidents. But in the past three decades, medical advances have extended our lives and changed the way we die. Journalist Kiernan reveals the disconnect between how patients want to live the end of life--pain-free, functioning mentally and physically, surrounded by family and friends--and how the medical system continues to treat the dying--with extreme interventions,...

This program discusses care at the end of life, primarily focusing on palliative care of individuals and their families.

"An ICU and Palliative Care specialist featured in the Netflix documentary Extremis offers a framework for a better way to exit life that will change our medical culture at the deepest level In medical school, no one teaches you how to let a patient die. Jessica Zitter became a doctor because she wanted to be a hero. She elected to specialize in critical care--to become an ICU physician--and imagined herself swooping in to rescue patients from the...

All of us are entitled to the rewards of a peaceful, pain-free death. This book honors that with true stories about hospice patients and inspiring insights from the author. Becoming Dead Right guides us through the general and "how to" information maze that prepares us for dealing with death. Improving and expanding hospice services will require systemic changes in healthcare institutions, outreach to diverse populations, and funding. With the inclusion...

Twenty-four-year-old Edward Warren, has been living in Thailand for five years, a prodigal son who left his family after an irreparable fight with his father, Luke. But he gets a frantic phone call: his dad lies comatose, gravely injured in the same accident that has also injured his younger sister Cara. With her father's chances for recovery dwindling, Cara wants to wait for a miracle. But Edward wants to terminate life support and donate his father's...

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot....

This book details Anne Allbright Smith's eleven days of discomfort and pain as she voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) to bring about her own death. This was despite compassionate hospice care throughout. There is overwhelming public support for Medical Aid in Dying (MAID). Yet only ten states and the District of Columbia have MAID statutes on their books. Why won't more legislators support the will of their constituents? By contrast,...

"People often do not avail themselves of hospice care available to patients and families dealing with terminal illness, because they don't understand what it entails. Many wait until their last few days to request this extraordinary comfort care instead of using the full six months available to them through Medicare and other insurance options. Demystifying Hospice describes, through stories, good news about end-of-life issues. Written from the perspective...

"A blend of memoir and investigation of the choices we face when our terror of death collides with the technological imperatives of modern medicine"--