Surviving Health Care: A Manual for Patients and Their Families

by Edited by Thomasine Kushner

• ISBN13: 9780521744416
• ISBN10: 0521744415
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book serves as a tool to help patients and families deal rationally with the perplexing and often irrational world of healthcare. It covers the topics and addresses the challenges that experts in a variety of healthcare fields believe to be the most vital to meeting the challenges of decision-making when people feel most vulnerable. With contributions from leading healthcare specialists, Surviving Health Care: A Manual for Patients and their Families examines a wide array of topics, including advance planning for healthcare, medical emergencies, genetic testing, pain management, and care of elders. It is a unique resource that aims above all to help patients reach their best healthcare decisions.

Author Biography

Thomasine Kushner is coeditor of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, and a bioethicist with the California Pacific Medical Center Program in Medicine and Human Values in San Francisco. She taught bioethics at the University of California, Berkeley for fifteen years and is the author (with David Thomasma) of Birth to Death: Science and Bioethics, Asking to Die: Inside the Dutch Debate about Euthanasia, and Ward Ethics: Dilemmas for Medical Students and Doctors in Training, along with several books on aesthetics and design.

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. ix
Preface	p. xiii
Letter to Patients: On Becoming the "Good" Patient and Finding the "Right" Doctor	p. 1
Becoming an Active Member of Your Health Care Team	p. 13
Information That Will Help You with Advance Planning for Your Health Care	p. 26
Responding to Medical Emergencies	p. 46
What You Need to Know about Medical Errors	p. 56
Being Informed When You Give Consent to Medical Care	p. 69
Beware of Scorecards	p. 85
Transplantation 101: Negotiating the System	p. 96
When the Illness Is Psychiatric	p. 124
On the Horizon: Genetic Testing	p. 136
To Be or Not to Be - A Research Subject	p. 146
Information That Will Help You Make Health Care Decisions for Adult Family Members	p. 163
Caring for Individuals with Alzheimer's Disease: Ethical Issues along the Way	p. 179
When the Patient Is a Child	p. 191
Care of Elders	p. 206
Being and Thinking	p. 222
A Patient's Guide to Pain Management	p. 246
The Hardest Decisions: When Treatment Stops Working	p. 264
What You Need to Know about Disasters	p. 279
Making the Internet Work for You: Researching Your Health Questions	p. 294
Appendix: Patient Individual Profile	p. 311
Index	p. 317
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.