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The Grievance


en Limba Engleză Paperback

IN THE END WILL YOU OR YOUR HOSPITAL HAVE CONTROL OVER YOUR LIFE?

The Grievance: A Real Life-and-Death Story is a deeply moving personal memoir--much of it in riveting real time--of a husband's cautionary tale of the whirlwind of circumstances, decisions and emotions surrounding the death of his vibrant wife whom he knew and loved for more than 50 years. Just 40 days earlier, she was playing tennis and bridge and doing yoga--then she was gone. She had a living will that specifically stated what medical procedures were not acceptable and it was handed upon arrival to the staff at "The Hospital" where it languished in a loose-leaf binder.

Like Atul Gawande's New York Times best seller, Being Mortal and The Institute of Medicine's report Dying in America, readers will want to add The Grievance to the growing national conversation on end-of-life issues in America. The intense personal perspective will engage and empower the average person in this very real life-and-death struggle.

Anyone who has ever loved deeply will immediately be drawn in by the first chapter, the "Goodbye" of initmate and charming recollections, but it is the gripping, colorful real-time text messages between Abrams and his adult daughter, Meredith, and email exchanges with friends that will make readers stay as everyone (doctors and family alike) attempt to unravel the effects of a rare disease that eventually takes Sandra Abrams' life.

The Grievance is a record of keen observtions and anecdotes about our hospital system that doesn't seem to work as it should, of its humanity and inhumanity, of our institutions and the knee-jerk reactions of a society still unable to handle death. It is the voice and warnings of someone who has "been there" for those of us who will be--all of us--if not for ourselves, for someone we love.

Abrams questions why end-of-life in America has to be so brutal and champions necessary change, providing the tools and resources for those who "wish to avoid well-engineered end-of-life traps." Abrams says "Doctors are trained to save lives at almost any cost, supporting lenght of life, when they should be trained to support quality of life. The medical default position should be to honor a patient's choice first in an advanced directive that is included in the electronic medical records.

Join the Conversation

Readers who wish to join the conversation on end-of-life issues in America are invited to go to www.thegrievancebook.com, the author's website, and share their reactions and experiences. With Medicare now deciding to fund end-of-life conversations, it is more important than ever that consumers know how to proceed in a thoughtful manner. Says Abrams, "Each person experiences death only once and therefore is a novice. Hospitals must do a better job in the way they honor and educate their patients and their families on the best way to die. To ignore their obligation to 'do no harm' violates the basic tenets on which the medical establishment was founded. Other nations have discovered how to provide their citizens dignity at the end-of-life. Why don't Americans have the courage to do so?"

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780692440131
ISBN-10: 0692440135
Pagini: 190
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 10 mm
Greutate: 0.26 kg
Editura: No Harm Press

Notă biografică

Lawrence Abrams is a debut author and advocate for reforming America's end-of-life system. He is Brooklyn born where he met his wife in Erasmus Hall High School and loved her for 50 years.The author, Lawrence Abrams is a retired high school principal in New York City where he worked for several decades to reform public education and became an advocate for the small school movement. Suddenly he was thrust, with little preparation, into America's end-of-life system. Never, in his wildest dreams, did he think he would author a book, but the writing poured out of him as a method to understand and control the hard decisions he and his daughter would have to make to keep their loved one safe from harm. Mr. Abrams is an undergraduate of The State University at Stony Brook and holds 3 graduate degrees, two from New York University and one from Pace University. He lives in New York City and The Berkshires.