Changing the way we die : compassionate end-of-life care and the hospice movement / Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel ; foreword by Joan Halifax, Ph.D.

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Title :

Changing the way we die : compassionate end-of-life care and the hospice movement

Author:

Smith, Fran (Journalist),

Format:

Books

Summary:

"There's a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care-nearly 44 percent of all deaths-and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape, through gripping stories of real patients, families, and doctors, as well as the corporate giants that increasingly own the market. Changing the Way We Die is a vital resource for anyone who wants to be prepared to face life's most challenging and universal event. You will learn: - Hospice use is soaring, yet most people come too late to get the full benefits. - With the age tsunami, it becomes even more critical for families and patients to choose end-of-life care wisely. - Hospice at its best is much more than a way to relieve the suffering of dying. It is a way to live"--

Language:

English

ISBN - ISSN:

9781936740512 (trade paper)

1936740516 (trade paper)

Physical Description:

xxii, 223 pages ; 21 cm

Contents:

The Choice. What do you want to do with the rest of your life? -- Birth of a movement -- Cure versus care -- The Patients. Evelyn Landes: house calls -- Alice and Ying Wun: a fragile family peace -- Peter Serrell: final fast -- Fred Holliday: inside the Catch-22 of hospice -- The Survivors. Up from the abyss -- Turning points -- The Providers. The gift of grace -- New course for doctors -- Dying for dollars -- Cultural revolutions -- Not if, but when -- Reflections.

Subject:

Hospice care -- United States.

Terminal care -- United States.

Death.

Compassion.

HEALTH & FITNESS / Health Care Issues.

FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Death, Grief, Bereavement.

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Death & Dying.

MEDICAL / Terminal Care.

Hospice care.

Terminal care.

United States.

First Title value, for Searching:

Changing the way we die : compassionate end-of-life care and the hospice movement / Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel ; foreword by Joan Halifax, Ph.D.

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Summary

There's a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1. 5 million Americans a year die in hospice care-nearly 44 percent of all deaths-and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a £14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape. Changing the Way We Die is a vital resource for anyone who wants to be prepared to face life's most challenging and universal event. You will learn:Hospice use is soaring, yet most people come too late to get the full benefits. With the age tsunami, it becomes even more critical for families and patients to choose end-of-life care wisely. Hospice at its best is much more than a way to relieve the suffering of dying. It is a way to live. Winner of the 2014 Independent Publisher Award Silver Medal in Aging/Death & Dying

Author Notes

Fran Smith is a writer, editor, writing coach, and communications consultant. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine; Redbook; Salon; Good Housekeeping; Prevention; Health; the Los Angeles Times; USA Today, and dozens of other publications and websites. She has won many awards for medical reporting, health care investigations, and feature writing, and shared a Pulitzer Prize as a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News. Fran co-authored the first reporters' guidebook published by the Association of Health Care Journalists, and she is a frequent speaker on the power of storytelling, health care writing, and effective communications. A history buff, she is also the author of Breaking Ground: The Daring Women of the YWCA of the Santa Clara Valley, 1905 - 2005. (YWCA: 2005). She lives in New York.Sheila Himmel is a Psychology Today blogger and co-author of Hungry: A Mother and Daughter Fight Anorexia (Penguin, 2009). She is a contributor to Restoring Our Bodies, Reclaiming Our Lives: Guidance and Reflections on Recovery from Eating Disorders (April 2011). Sheila writes for publications ranging from the New York Times to Eating Well to IEEE Spectrum: The Magazine of Technology Insiders. Her work has appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Robb Report, M Magazine, and the online magazine Obit. As a restaurant critic of the San Jose Mercury News, Sheila won a James Beard Foundation Award for feature writing. She won awards from the Association of Food Journalists and the Associated Press News Editors Association, and uncovered fraud at a prominent Silicon Valley restaurant, revealing its longtime substitution of pork for veal. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.Activist, anthropologist, author, caregiver, ecologist, LSD researcher, teacher, and Zen Buddhism priest -- Joan Halifax is many things to many people. Yet they all seem to agree that no matter what role she plays, Halifax is consistently courageous and compassionate. Halifax runs the Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community she opened in 1990 after founding and leading the Ojai Foundation in California for ten years. Her practice focuses on socially engaged Buddhism, which aims to alleviate suffering through meditation, interfaith cooperation, and social service.As director of the Project on Being With Dying, Halifax has helped caregivers cope with death and dying for more than three decades. Her book Being With Dying helps clergy, community activists, medical professionals, social workers and spiritual seekers remove fear from the end of life. Halifax is a distinguished invited scholar of the U.S. Library of Congress and the only woman and Buddhist on the Tony Blair Foundation's Advisory Council. She resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Reviews (2)

Booklist Review

Nobody wants to die badly. With that opening line, cowriters Smith and Himmel proceed to persuasively explain why no one should ever have to. Hospice is a philosophy and program that maximizes the quality of remaining life by delivering compassionate care with a holistic approach. Its focus is on easing suffering. In addition to medical and nursing services, hospice provides assistance with practical needs, counseling, and bereavement services. Volunteers play a huge role. Over 400,000 individuals volunteer at more than 5,000 hospice programs in the United States. Hospice has grown into a $14 billion industry. Medicare, Medicaid, and many private health-insurance plans cover hospice services for individuals whose life expectancy is six months or less. Many people still wait too long to enroll. The history of the hospice mission and its evolution in America are well summarized. Smith and Himmel provide inspiring stories about patients, families, physicians, and the entire hospice experience. When the time comes, most Americans prefer to die at home, devoid of pain and surrounded by loved ones. As this book reveals, hospice can help.--Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2010 Booklist

Library Journal Review

America avoids death. From our obsession with youth to our heroic medical model, death is often viewed as giving up. Yet despite a culture of denial, the hospice movement, which helps families face the last stage of life with intention, compassion, and respect, has continually grown since 1963. Free of the often torturous medical attempts to cure old age or terminal illness, hospice offers palliative home care and seeks to restore control and dignity to the dying while providing support and respite to their loved ones. Health-care writers and activists Smith and Himmel chronicle the hospice movement and share stories of the dying and their caregivers, illuminating the benefits of this model. Also delineated are the issues associated with the encroachment of for-profit hospice-Wall Street knowing a Medicare bonanza when it sees one. By explaining the hospice alternative to the more common hospital death, the authors ask us to consider our own deaths and how we will go about making decisions when end of life is not just inevitable but imminent. They propose that hospice offers choice, freedom from pain and suffering, and perhaps even joy during those last days. Verdict This book belongs in every public and health-care library in America.-Janet Tapper, Univ. of Western States Lib., Portland, OR (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Excerpts

Chapter 1 What Do You Want to Do with the Rest of Your Life? ALL ALONG, doctors differed on Rusty Hammer's prognosis. One told his wife, Pamela, "If he lasts five years, he'll be lucky." Another kept reassuring Rusty, "You never know. You're doing fine. Just get more rest." He did last five years, and Pamela will always wonder whether the treatment was worth the torment. Rusty was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a rare and aggressive blood cancer. By the time he died, on Monday, Jan. 28, 2008, he had taken more than 250 medications, received more than 350 blood transfusions, had a stem cell transplant, and spent nearly 600 nights in six different hospitals. He developed severe diabetes and osteoporosis, heart and lung failure. He needed an oxygen tank to breathe and a shunt in his brain to relieve the pain. Visiting the doctor took all day, with the wheelchair, the drive, managing a hospital bed on the other end. It left them both exhausted, and hopeless that their family's suffering would ever end. But hospice care brought them comfort and calm. In the last six months of his life, Rusty enjoyed the company of family and friends. He explored his religious heritage. He wrote a book, and in a strange way he also became the author of his own experience -- a person again, not a medical record number or an object to be handed from one specialist to another for yet another blast of debilitating treatment. The hospice team listened to him. Pamela found herself becoming a better listener, too. This was not how Rusty thought of hospice when a friend first suggested it. He did not imagine an opportunity to reclaim his life, let alone do something new or grow. He thought of hospice as a place you go to die, and he was appalled. Excerpted from Changing the Way We Die: Compassionate End of Life Care and the Hospice Movement by Fran Smith, Sheila Himmel All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Joan Halifax, Ph.D.

Foreword	p. xiii
Introduction	p. xv
Part 1 The Choice	p. 1
1 What Do You Want to Do with the Rest of Your Life?	p. 3
2 Birth of a Movement	p. 13
3 Cure Versus Care	p. 33
Part 2 The Patients	p. 49
4 Evelyn Landes: House Calls	p. 51
5 Alice and Ying Wun: A Fragile Family Peace	p. 63
6 Peter Serrell: Final Fast	p. 73
7 Fred Holliday: Inside the Catch-22 of Hospice	p. 83
Part 3 The Survivors
8 Up from the Abyss	p. 97
9 Turning Points	p. 109
Part 4 The Providers	p. 119
10 The Gift of Grace	p. 121
11 New Course for Doctors	p. 135
12 Dying for Dollars	p. 149
13 Cultural Revolutions	p. 167
14 Not If, But When	p. 177
Reflections	p. 187
Acknowledgments	p. 193
Notes	p. 195
Index	p. 217
About the Authors	p. 225

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

Excerpts

Excerpts

Table of Contents