Modern Death: How Medicine Changed The End of Life

Description

Nothing is more certain in life than death. Yet recent advances in medicine and technology have dramatically increased our life expectancy, and everything about when, where, how and why we die has changed. The result is that dying is today a more prolonged and harrowing experience than ever before. In Modern Death, the physician and clinical researcher Haider Warraich draws on his expert personal experience as well as on history, culture, theology and legal theory, to tackle important ethical questions that go right to the heart of what it is to be human. He reveals what dying really means in today's medical-industrial complex, discusses the ethics of patient proxies, living wills and the right to die, and argues in favour of giving terminally ill patients the right to physician-assisted death. Written by an insightful, fresh voice in the conversation about death and dying, Modern Death is a heartfelt and inspiring book offering an unabashedly honest perspective, exploring how we can, and why we must, do better by the ones we love.

Dr Haider Warraich is an expert on healthcare and health policy and has contributed to the Guardian, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, as well as BBC Radio and others. He was an instructor at Harvard Medical School and is now a fellow at Duke University Medical Centre.

Warraich's elegant and poignant book takes us on an unforgettable journey... gives us remarkable insights about the changing nature of modern death -- Siddhartha Mukherjee, New York Times bestselling author of The Gene and The Emperor of All Maladies I devoured it in one sitting... I've never had a better time reading a book about death -- Katy Butler, New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death A much-needed exploration of this treacherous territory -- Danielle Ofri, author of What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear