Critical Moments : Death and Dying in Intensive Care

by Seymour, Jane; Seymour, Jane E.

• ISBN13: 9780335204243
• ISBN10: 0335204244
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-01
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Summary

The development of the intensive care unit stands as an expression of a post war medical revolution in which the means have become available to deflect and defer death almost indefinitely. Here, cultural expectations of medical heroism are conjoined with images of the most exacting and precise application of medical science. However, the use of an arsenal of scientific and technological advances to try and pull dying people back from the very brink of death has, it might be argued, leapt ahead of our ability to deal with the professional, social, ethical and financial consequences thrown up by its use. This book explores how the withdrawal of active medical treatment is managed in intensive care units, placing this in the context of detailed patient case studies. It examines, in particular, the notion of 'natural death' in this highly technological health care setting, and explores how doctors and nurses strive to achieve this for dying people and their families. It draws extensively on the experiences of patients' families, doctors and nurses, using interview

Author Biography

Jane E. Seymour is a research fellow in the Sheffield Palliative Care Studies Group at the University of Sheffield

Table of Contents

Series editor's preface	vii
Acknowledgements	x
Notes on fonts, punctuation marks, and use of names and initials	xi
Glossary	xii
Introduction	1	(6)
Uncertain deaths: critical care and the modern hospital	7	(16)
A methodological note	23	(10)
Medical knowledge in intensive care: constructing prognostic certainty	33	(22)
Critical caring: negotiating medicine and nursing	55	(12)
A primary need examined: the disclosure of information to patients' companions	67	(24)
Withdrawing medical treatment in intensive care: the problem of `natural death'	91	(15)
`Nursing care only'	106	(22)
The `good death' in intensive care: a matter of integrity	128	(27)
Conclusion	155	(14)
References	169	(13)
Index	182