Getting The Best Care: Rescue Your Loved One from the Healthcare Conveyor Belt

by Margaret Fitzpatrick

Are you helping an older loved one with healthcare choices? Are you planning for your own healthcare as you age? This can involve stressful decisions. This book, Getting the Best Care will help you to navigate the complex medical system. Whether you are a family caregiver or someone who has complex medical issues, you will benefit from this book.Drawing on her 20+ years as a critical care nurse and nurse anesthetist, author Margaret Fitzpatrick will help you to think about the most important question in healthcare: What is the goal? Knowing your personal healthcare goals will help your doctors to give you the care that you want and need, rather than treating you according to “standard practices.” Without having an idea of personal goals, you risk being put on the Healthcare Conveyor Belt, being run through tests and procedures that may not benefit you and may, in fact cause you harm. Getting the Best Care will guide you to knowing how to advocate for yourself and your loved ones.Using personal stories and experiences involving patients and their families, Getting the Best Care is an easy to read and vital addition to your home library.

224 pages, Paperback

Published January 31, 2019

Reviews

[Ariel G · Rating 4 out of 5]

The purpose of this book is to help you help someone else - especially if that person is a loved one reaching the end of their life and wanting to do so in as comfortable and non-invasive a manner as possible. Because it's mainly a how-to, it goes through each subject chapter by chapter. The author tends to share a couple of anecdotes about her experience with people in the same situations, before providing facts and figures to back up that experience, and some action items to take away right before you get overwhelmed with information.

Fitzpatrick, who has worked in the healthcare industry for over 20 years, dismantles many medical misconceptions about what end-of-life care actually looks like. This includes descriptions of CPR, ventilators, and do-not-resuscitate orders that may contradict what you've seen in movies or TV shows. Still, these descriptions aren’t unnecessarily detailed, but presented with an informative and sympathetic viewpoint. This book offers a valuable perspective that we most often don't experience until it's already too late, and then we’re thrown into the deep end without warning.

The author’s goal - preparing the reader and the patient for end-of-life care without being too medically invasive – is accomplished admirably. The chapters are short and succinct enough to get their information across without bogging down the reader. Just in case you lose your place each chapter ends with a takeaway of reminders and lessons so you can apply what you’ve learned to real life. Overall, this book excels what it sets out to do, which is matter-of-fact medical education in a supportive, sympathetic way.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first and possibly most important observation readers will make about Fitzpatrick’s book is the care with which it is written. She realizes the advantages she has with her healthcare career and shares much of her elderly care knowledge with readers. Fitzpatrick is honest about the separation between healthcare-focused care and patient-focused care. She urges readers to ensure their loved ones wishes are upheld with dignity and respect. With chapter summaries that break down important notes and offer questions to pass along to doctors, Fitzpatrick has created an oasis in the crazy, painful, and challenging part of end-of-life care that people so often neglect to prepare for until it’s too late.

[Hannah Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an avid book reviewer and professional patient in the medical system with years of experience, I can say with absolute certainty that this book is a five-star read. Which is not an opinion I hold lightly. This book is filled with practical and thoroughly researched information to help guide anyone and their loved ones through an assortment of medical experiences. This book sets you up for success in ways you could never have imagined but will be very grateful to now know and feel secure about.
Margaret Fitzpatrick, uses accessible language throughout this book, leaving you feeling a little overwhelmed, but ultimately armed with the knowledge to help you navigate the healthcare/medical system successfully. It is not an easy thing to break all of this down into such a way that it makes sense and becomes a simple step-by-step process to follow. Fitzpatrick does not shy away from the harsh realities of what could happen in any given medical situation. Instead, she gives people the exact information they need to make each step, and each decision go as smoothly and least painful as possible.
This book is an absolute must-read if you or someone you know (of any age) is struggling with health issues and requires care.

[Johanna Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fitzpatrick offers excellent advice from an objective standpoint with illuminating case studies to support her thesis. My one criticism is that the overarching advice (clearly defining personal goals and making informed decisions by asking the right questions) becomes a bit repetitive after the first few chapters. This book helps the reader think unconventionally about healthcare during the last stages of life. She points out how oftentimes the objectives of doctors, whose goal is to save lives, will not be in line with how best the patient should die. One of my favorite takeaways from this book is that patient age and number of medical problems will decide whether the patient will live or die and not family members who at times feel as though the burden of this decision is on them. What Fitzpatrick finely shows is that what the patient/family members can decide is how the last days of the loved one's life will be lived.

[Ed Malaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Getting the Best Care is a book everyone should own.

I believe that this book should be on every adult's must-read list. This book makes you wake up and think about so many things you never think about ahead of time. It will help you make essential decisions while you still have time to weigh the facts.

Getting the Best Care pushes the importance of understanding your loved one's wishes and will help you choose care providers that will take care of them the right way.

With a record-breaking number of adults living into their senior years, this book, written by a long-time nurse, will be an invaluable resource to us all.

[Carol Romaniak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a necessary tool when planning long term (or short term) healthcare goals for you or your family members. The author has impeccable credentials as a trauma nurse and nurse anesthetist. The stories she shares provide practical examples of what to do and what not to do, depending on your goals, when faced with a medical crisis. You need this book if you are aging, have an illness or care for someone who does.

[Corrine Cassels · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who took care of my sick mother throughout my teen years and is the mother of a medically complex child, this book is such an important read. I think anyone who has a loved one with health issues should read it. This book stresses the importance of putting your loved ones wishes first and to weigh every decision, whether it be tests or procedures, with that ultimately first in mind. Such a powerful, thoughtful read.