Today, with most deaths in developed countries occurring in hospitals and the likely exponential increase of this over the coming decades, it is an opportune time to reflect on the care of patients in the hospital setting and how the quality of care can be optimised to ensure that patient needs and expectations are sufficiently met.
Written by Teik E. Oh, author of the internationally acclaimed Oh’s Intensive Care Manual, this timely new title addresses the clinical, ethical, societal and legal imperatives of end-of-life care. Oh includes considered reflections on death and dying in hospitals, which address issues in hospital end-of-life care and the choices that patients, families and healthcare professionals face during this extraordinary journey – all of which improve understanding of dying and end-of-life care in hospitals.
Key Features
- Provides ‘road maps’ of critical illness and dying in our hospitals that will guide you through end-of-life processes and issues
- Covers essential topics including treatment choices, rights, ethics, living wills, informed consent, communication, advanced care directives, the dilemmas doctors face, why and how decisions are made, evaluating prognoses and concepts of futility, withdrawing treatment, and how religion and culture influence care
- Corrects misconceptions of conditions associated with death and dying, including withdrawing treatment, brain death and persistent vegetative states, euthanasia, organ donation, consent and patient autonomy
- Enhanced eBook version included with purchase
New Features
This is an indispensable and contemporary guide to understanding hospitalbased end-of-life care.
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Part I Twilight Zone
Chapter 1 End of life
Chapter 2 Ethics in death and dying
Chapter 3 Advance care directives
Part II Futility
Chapter 4 Do not resuscitate
Chapter 5 Prognostications
Chapter 6 Withdrawing treatment
Part III Communication
Chapter 7 Communication
Chapter 8 Informed consent
Part IV Death
Chapter 9 Brain death and vegetative states
Chapter 10 Euthanasia
Chapter 11 Organ donation
Part V Faiths
Chapter 12 Religions at the end of life
Chapter 13 Cultures and ethnicities
Part VI Health Services
Chapter 14 The healthcare system
Chapter 15 The intensive care unit
Chapter 16 Distributive justice
Chapter 17 Medical mishaps
Glossary and Acronyms
Index