Death and Dignity: Making Choices and Taking Charge

by Timothy E. Quill

"For me Dr. Quill is a hero―a physician with a head and a heart." ―Betty Rollin, author of Last Wish This book looks squarely at how patients can make crucial decisions and take charge of the end of their lives. This book is a resource for anyone who fears unnecessary suffering and excessive medical intervention at that point. It helps readers think through and then complete advance directives, and also to take a more active role when they or a family member becomes terminally ill. Through real-life stories and his own experience, Dr. Quill explores what measures a patient can choose to prolong life and how to forgo such measures if they begin to extend a painful death, choosing instead approaches such as comfort care which emphasize quality more than quantity of life. Finally, Dr. Quill speaks out on physician-assisted suicide and why he helped a long-term patient of his, stricken with leukemia, to take her life when her suffering became intolerable. He asks for regulation, rather than denial, knowing that many patients and doctors ofen face this question at times of crisis.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 1994

Reviews

[Karrie McMillan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this - important book about the end of life and the choices you should have about how to live and end it.

[Anna]

Quill’s explanation of his views on what should be a “good death,” and what we can do to help people die “good deaths.” I liked it more than I thought I would, because Quill is in some ways quite reasonable and relates many case studies. I still don’t always agree with him, though.