Hospice Palliative Care Book Reviews &
The Palliative Care Book of the Month
Dr. Woodruff, MD
(Australia)
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Book of the Month
TEAMWORK IN PALLIATIVE CARE
Peter Speck (Ed)
Oxford University Press, 2006
223 pp
ISBN 0-19-856774-X
RRP £27.50, $US49.95.
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This book takes thinking about palliative care teams to a new level. All aspects are critically reviewed: team composition and functioning, team building and leadership, managing stress and conflict, ethical and legal issues and, most importantly, team effectiveness. Even the sacred tenet of palliative care teams is challenged—we know good palliative care makes a difference, but is this difference primarily due to the team or could it be equally well delivered by sufficiently resourced individuals? At a time when there is a leaning towards the medicalisation of death, this thought-provoking book puts the team back centre stage.
Roger Woodruff
Director of Palliative Care, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia
July 2007
Book Reviews
WHEN TREATMENT FAILS
How medicine cares for dying children
David J. Bearisson
Oxford University Press, 2006
ISBN 978-0-19-515612-6
RRP $US29.95, £17.99
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This is the narrative stories of twenty dying children, their families and the staff who care for them, compiled with great skill by a Professor of Developmental Psychology from New York. With treatment, where do you draw the line, when is enough enough? The reactions of staff, the reactions of families. These are stories from the bedside, both moving and candid, with a lot of practical clinical wisdom. Reading this book will be of interest and value to anyone who works in palliative care and, needless to say, it is required reading for those who work in
pediatric end-of-life care.
MEDICINE AND CARE OF THE DYING
Milton J. Lewis
Oxford University Press, 2007
277 pp
ISBN 0-19-517548-4
RRP $US35.00, £19.99
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Has modern scientific medicine put curing the body before caring for the person? I guess most palliative care workers would think so. The opening chapters trace the historical and religious origins of this issue. Chapter 3 focuses on the treatment of cancer as an example to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of modern scientific medicine. The following chapters detail the development of palliative care and pain control. The last chapter is about the history and present status of the euthanasia movement. As has happened before, I did not entirely agree with everything I read in the chapter on euthanasia, but the historical descriptions of what happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were most interesting. This book will be of interest to anyone who works in palliative care and anyone interested in end-of-life issues.
RETHINKING PALLIATIVE CARE
A Social Role Valorisation Approach
Paul Sinclair
Policy Press, 2007
246 pp
ISBN 978-186134921 7
RRP £21.99, $US45.05.
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I can tell you what this book is about (or what I think it is about), but I am perhaps insufficiently educated in the social sciences to pass judgment on it. Paul Sinclair, a social worker working in both the intellectual disability and palliative care fields, argues that palliative care does not deliver on its aims of valuing people who are dying and making death and dying a natural part of life, i.e. the current conceptualization and organization of palliative care devalues those who are dying. Deconstructing what we know as palliative care and then reconstructing it, using social role valorisation theory, will produce a superior palliative care that does deliver on its aims. For those of you not up with it, social role valorisation theory is a derivative of normalisation theory, greatly lauded in the de-institutionalisation movement in the intellectual disability field. I looked for but could not find a clear succinct definition of either theory.
PIECE OF PLANET OR PLANET OF PEACE
A journey through letting go told in prose and poetry
Lara De Ann
Sunspirit Publishing, 2005
305 pp
ISBN 0-9767715-0-0
RRP $US14.95
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This is an account of the author’s journeys (both spiritual and geographic) over a ten-year period following the suicide of her 24-year-old soul mate, Ted, from bipolar-related suicide. As a bereavement support book, I think it may appeal most to younger adults.
Roger Woodruff
Director of Palliative Care, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia
(July 2007)
Procedure to submit a book for review:
If you would like to have a book reviewed and included in the IAHPC bookshop, please send a copy to the IAHPC Bookshop Editor:
Dr. Roger Woodruff
IAHPC Bookshop Editor
210 Burgundy Street Suite 9
Heildberg, Victoria 3084
AUSTRALIA
Note: Books sent to our bookshop editor become property of IAHPC and the review may take some time to appear in the Newsletter. Only books related to palliative care and with an ISBN number will be reviewed. Others will be discarded. Thank You!
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