Read the Latest Review from the Hasting Center Report
"The intention of this book is simple – to improve
the care of dying patients and their families. The author carefully weaves
theoretical considerations with a clinical pragmatism to help the novice
physician reinforce the goals of care for the terminally ill."
--Craig D. Blinderman, MD, MA
Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative
Care
Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, NY
Reviewed in the Journal of Pain and
Symptom Management
Vol.31/No.5 May 2006
"A Palliative Ethic of Care is well worth
reading, even by veteran clinicians."
––Mellar P. Davis, MD
Harry R. Horvitz Center for Palliative
Medicine
As reviewed in the New England Journal
of Medicine
2006, 354:15
"The book focuses on the challenges and barriers facing the growing field of
palliative care. It serves as a comprehensive primer on the ethics of
end-of-life care starting with the ethical and legal principles essential to
end-of-life decision making and ending with a practical methodological approach
and a pathway to clinical care."
––The British Library
May 2006
"This book, targeting principally physicians-in-training,
provides practical advice for melding theory and practice in the real-life world
of the acute care hospital. This book is written in a straightforward, informal
style, often addressing the reader in the second person."
––James Hallenbeck, MD
Stanford University School of Medicine
The Oncologist
May 2006
"In A Palliative Ethic of Care, Dr. Fins, a consummate
educator, extends himself as a mentor. With uncanny discernment, he articulates
nagging questions and doubts that arise in young clinicians' minds and offers
responses that are clear, insightful and highly practical...destined to become
a standard in medical education."
--Ira Byock,
MD, Director of Palliative Medicine,
Dartmouth
Medical
School, author of Dying Well
“Dr. Fins combines a physician's
practicality with philosophical pragmatism to lead young doctors through the
complex process of caring for dying patients. As William James, his mentor in
pragmatism, would say, "it is a worthwhile leading" for it arrives at truths
that can make a difference in the experience of doctors and patients alike.”
--Albert R. Jonsen, Ph.D., Emeritus
Professor, Ethics in Medicine, University of Washington; Co-Director,
Program in Medicine and Human Values, California Pacific Medical Center
“The book models how to doctor the
dying... By learning how to apply abstract ethical and legal principles to
every day medical decision making, this uniquely relevant and readable text
teaches students how to formulate a care plan that respects a patient's
autonomy, dignity and personhood...There is both a brilliance and a simplicity
in the book's writing style. It is conversational and you feel as if
you are on rounds with a master teacher.”
--From the foreword by Kathleen M. Foley, MD,
Attending Neurologist, Pain & Palliative Care Service Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center
"This is a comprehensive, yet concise, compelling review of the concept,
the context, and the content of quality end-of-life care.
The emphasis on the need for individual medical decisions to be driven and
directed by the goal of care is the book's finest hour and most important
contribution. Hopefully it will make the pronouncement, 'There's nothing more we can do,'
obsolete. Dr. Fins encourages and empowers the professional with the idea
that competent, compassionate, goal-centered care is every bit as rewarding
as cure."
--David B. Cotton, MA; MDiv.,
Jersey Shore University Medical Center
Doody's Enterprises, Inc.
"Recommended as a primary text in courses that address care for the
terminally ill. Further recommended to Health Science libraries as a general
reference text exploring medical, sociological and philosophical issues of
patient care."
--John Aiello
The Electric Review
"Fins is a highly gifted and insightful individual. As a physician and
bioethicist, he crafts a vision for good quality care at the end of life.
In crafting a vision, he leads with reason and passion. As a teacher and
mentor, he articulates, clarifies, and tackles philosophical, ethical, and legal
principles with brilliance and candor. As a narrator of stories, he speaks with
feeling and confers meaning on an otherwise unexamined patient's
world. Indeed, my colleague's sentiments are very telling, 'I wish I
had this book when I was in medical school.'"
--Cesar G. Espineda, PH,D
Journal of Religion and Health