There is a growing conflict in medicine between the research imperative, with its implicit goal of overcoming death itself, and the re-emergent clinical imperative to treat death as a part of life, and to make the process of dying as tolerable as possible. Central to this conflict is the rise of scientific medicine and the decline of religious and associated moral discourses. Many of the Anglo Saxon countries are also marked by a moral and religious pluralism which breeds controversy over bioethical issues such as euthanasia.
It seems that modern medicine has put the cure of bodies before the care of persons. Some scholars attribute this to a metaphysical heritage of dualism and reductionism. This heritage has become problematic in the modern age when waning belief in a divine order leaves the individual self as the bearer of meaning. At the same time, knowledge about nature and society has been increasing at such an accelerated pace, it has become even more difficult to develop a unified secular worldview. When the dying self contemplates its own disintegration in this context, the search for meaning may rest heavy indeed.
Chapters one and two address these larger issues. Chapter three focuses on medicine's approach to cancer as a prime example of the strengths and weaknesses of the research imperative. Chapter four looks at the diffusion of the theory and practice of palliative care throughout the Anglo Saxon world. The fifth chapter discusses the development of effective pain control, essential to palliative care and one of modern medicine's unsung triumphs. The sixth chapter addresses the changing meaning of euthanasia in Western history in the past century, as it transitioned from a philosophical position to a widely-debated policy proposal.
This book is for palliative care practitioners, and all health care professionals with an interest in end-of-life care. It is also for students in palliative care and the history of medicine, and for anyone interested in the history of this intriguing field.
Industry Reviews
"In addition to the illuminating information on palliative care and ways that physicians might integrate it into patient-plans, Medicine and Care also contains excellent chapters on the public debate involving pain control and euthanasia and the current state of the 'right-to-die' movement...Readers and students should pay careful attention: the issues raised by Lewis are not going away anything soon."--The Electric Review
"This work is extremely well documented and covers the development of hospice programs in five Anglo-American countries in such detail that it can serve as a reference on the socioeconomic history of end-of-life, palliative medicine in the English-speaking world."--Doody's
"...a well-researched exploration and exposition of the historical versus contemporary attitudes to, as its title suggests, the care of the dying. The work is underpinned with a thorough understanding of the pharmacology of pain control alongside the equally important components of the non-physical environment. As well, all the current problems and ethical dilemmas related to the subject get a thorough airing...it is a book with a universal appeal given that
the principles of good palliative care and pain management know no borders."--Metascience
"For those of us in a busy clinical practice it is easy to accept unquestioningly how palliative care is practiced and services organized in the country in which we work. This book will jolt the reflective reader from their comfort zone of the status quo to question more the wider issues of society, ethics, morality, religion, culture, and philosophy which should shape practice. How do we practice the good technical scientific care demanded in an inreasingly
secular and materialistic world, yet retain the more ethereal holistic and spiritual aspects of care?...I believe this book will benefit not only clinical practitioners but also policy makers charged
with developing services for dying people whether in the developed or developing world. Finally, the book will challenge all who read it to consider the wider societal and community approach to improving care."--Reviewed by Edwin J. Pugh, University of Teesside, UK, in Mortality
