A Death Prolonged: Answers to difficult end-of-life issues like code status, living wills, do not resuscitate, and the excessive costs of terminal ... that leads to suffering and financial waste.

by Jeffrey Paul Gordon

This novel attacks myths about end-of-life care that lead to unnecessary suffering and financial waste. Health professionals and the public alike need this information so they can make good decisions and avoid disasters at the end of life. By addressing this issue through fiction, Dr. Gordon takes his readers into a hospital to witness the perils of delaying the discussions about end-of-life care. The story engages and informs to motivate people to act on this crucial issue.

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written story about a physician's struggle with managing end-of-life discussions with her patients and exposes many of the problems with our health care system and the way our health resources are distributed. Dr. Gordon should address Congress with these issues. And, NO, he is not suggesting that all elderly people should be "DNRs", just that we should apply common sense when making these decisions. If we we will resuscitate someone back to a vegetative state or to living the remainder of his or her life on a ventilator and completely dependent on others, then maybe DNR-CC is the right choice. I recall hearing a medical ethicist speak about this issue several years ago. She describe an incident where her husband adamantly told her that he did not ever want to be placed on a ventilator. One day, while mowing the lawn, he was stung by a bee and went into anaphylactic shock. She called 911 and she had to decide whether to intubate and place him on a ventilator until the emergency drugs worked and he could breathe on his own. She decided that he would forgive her and decided to go against his wishes because he would return to a normal life. She said she would have made a different decision for him if the prognosis would have left him comatose or if he would have had to live on a vent the rest of his life. And he lived to ride his John Deere once again. (I apologize that I cannot remember the name of the speaker to give her proper credit for this story).