A Palliative Ethic of Care: Clinical Wisdom at Life's End

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Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2006 - Law - 281 pages
This volume explains how to develop a set of patient and physician goals for improving quality of life, resolving end of life issues, and treating dying patients. The author, Dr. Joseph Fins, pragmatically blends ethical theory and clinical practice, presenting readers with theoretical and historical considerations about end of life care and offering practical wisdom about the care of dying patients and their families. A Palliative Ethic of Care employs the ground-breaking Goals of Care Assessment Tool (GCAT) as a framework of knowledge that links practical considerations about patient care with more theoretical concerns to provide deeper insights into why end-of-life care is so challenging and to help foster necessary reform in how people die.Systems of care are impersonal and anonymous. Ultimately, it is the task of the individual practitioner to initiate and sustain the provision of care. A Palliative Ethic of Care: Clinical Wisdom at Life's End is an invaluable resource for helping achieve this objective.

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Contents

Medical Students Residents and the Dying
3
Chapter
8
GoalSetting Near the End of Life
9
Death Dying and the Law
29
Advance Care Planning in Theory
36
A Consensus on Palliative Care
45
Epilogue
52
EndofLife Care in the Hospital
63
Advance Care Planning
125
Withdrawals of Care
132
Gathering Information
163
Forced Prognostication and Patient
169
Constructing a Shared World of Meaning
176
The Therapeutic Exception
186
The Elusive Advance Directive
192
The Symbionic Family
198

Fostering Communication
70
Ambivalence and Medical Futility
77
GoalSetting A Strategy for Effective
91
Chapter 6
100
EndofLife Decisions
119
Public Perspectives on Pain and Meaning
211
Formulating the Goals of Care
225
Appendix
263
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