The Courage to Fail: A Social View of Organ Transplants and Dialysis

by Swazey,Judith P.

• ISBN13: 9780765807410
• ISBN10: 0765807416
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-03-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The title of this profound work conveys the bold, uncertain, and often dangerous adventure in which medical professionals and their organ transplant and dialysis patients are engaged. Built around a series of case studies developed through years of first-hand ethnographic research, The Courage to Fail is the product of collaborative first-hand research concerned with various social phenomena generated by transplantation and dialysis and also by the development and deployment of an artificial heart. The authors examine the individuals involved and the workings and atmosphere of some of the medical centers in which these forms of therapy have been developed. They examine "gift-exchange" dimensions of transplantation: the transcendent and tyrannical aspects of the "gift of life" that transplants entail for donors and recipients -- and for medical professionals as well. They also analyze the dilemma of uncertainty inherent in medicine, which occurs with particular force in the development of such experimental techniques.Since publication of the original edition, the authors have continued to follow social and medical developments surrounding organ transplants and dialysis. In their new introduction, they discuss transplantation as a gift of life, how death is defined and when it occurs, efforts to procure more organs, and organ allocation and issues of equity. This book will be of interest to physicians, medical students, medical sociologists, and anyone interested in the history of and issues surrounding organ replacement.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Transaction Edition	vii
Preface to the Second Edition	xxxi
Preface to the First Edition	xxxiii
Acknowledgments	xliii
Part 1 Patterns in Therapeutic Innovation: Transplantation
Gift Exchange and Gatekeeping	5	(35)
Specialists in Uncertainty: The Problem of Rejection	40	(20)
The Experiment-Therapy Dilemma	60	(27)
Part 2 The Courage to Fail Ethos
The Physician-Investigator and His Patients	87	(21)
The Heart Transplant Moratorium	108	(27)
The Case of the Artificial Heart	135	(66)
Part 3 Patterns in Therapeutic Innovation: Dialysis
``To Give Life'': A Study of Seattle's Hemodialysis Program	201	(25)
Patient Selection and the Right to Die: Problems Facing Seattle's Kidney Center	226	(40)
Ernie Crowfeather	266	(39)
Part 4 Changing Perspectives on Transplantation and Dialysis
Transplantation in the 1970s: A Revised Paradigm of Therapeutic Innovation	305	(40)
The Democratization of Dialysis: Public Law 92-603	345	(31)
The Societal Meaning of The Courage to Fail	376	(9)
Notes	385	(12)
Appendix: A Sociological Portrait of the Transplant Surgeon	397	(14)
Bibliography	411	(28)
Index	439