Most Americans, when pressed, have a vague sense of how they would like to die. They may imagine a quick and painless end or a gentle passing away during sleep. Some may wish for time to prepare and make peace with themselves, their friends, and their families. Others would prefer not to know what's coming, a swift, clean break. Yet all fear that the reality will be painful and prolonged; all fear the loss of control that could accompany dying. That fear is justified. It is also historically unprecedented. In the past thirty years, the advent of medical technology capable of sustaining life without restoring health, the expectation that a critically ill person need not die, and the conviction that medicine should routinely thwart death have significantly changed where, when, and how Americans die and put us all in the position of doing something about death. In a penetrating and revelatory study, medical anthropologist Sharon R. Kaufman examines the powerful center of those changes -- the hospital, where most Americans die today. In the hospital world, the deep, irresolvable tension between the urge to extend life at all costs and the desire to allow "letting go" is rarely acknowledged, yet it underlies everything that happens there among patients, families, and health professionals. Over the course of two years, Kaufman observed and interviewed critically ill patients, their families, doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff at three community hospitals. In...And a Time to Die, her research places us at the heart of that science-driven yet fractured and often irrational world of health care delivery, where empathetic yet frustrated, hard-working yet constrained professionals both respond to and create the anxieties and often inchoate expectations of patients and families, who must make "decisions" they are ill-prepared to make. Filled with actual conversations between patients and doctors, families and hospital staff,...And a Time to Die clearly and carefully exposes the reasons for complicated questions about medical care at the end of life: for example, why "heroic" treatment so often overrides "humane" care; why patients and families are ambivalent about choosing death though they claim to want control; what constitutes quality of life and life itself; and, ultimately, why a "good" death is so elusive. In elegant, compelling prose, Kaufman links the experiences of patients and families, the work of hospital staff, and the ramifications of institutional bureaucracy to show the invisible power of the hospital system itself -- its rules, mandates, and daily activity -- in shaping death and our individual experience of it. ...And a Time to Die is a provocative, illuminating, and necessary read for anyone working in or navigating the health care system today, providing a much-needed road map to the disorienting territory of the hospital, where we all are asked to make life-and-death choices.
Most of us want and expect medicine’s miracles to extend our lives. In today’s aging society, however, the line between life-giving therapies and too much treatment is hard to see—it’s being obscured by a perfect storm created by the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries, along with insurance companies. In Ordinary Medicine Sharon R. Kaufman investigates what drives that storm’s “more is better” approach to medicine: a nearly invisible chain of social, economic, and bureaucratic forces that has made once-extraordinary treatments seem ordinary, necessary, and desirable. Since 2002 Kaufman has listened to hundreds of older patients, their physicians and family members express their hopes, fears, and reasoning as they faced the line between enough and too much intervention. Their stories anchor Ordinary Medicine. Today’s medicine, Kaufman contends, shapes nearly every American’s experience of growing older, and ultimately medicine is undermining its own ability to function as a social good. Kaufman’s careful mapping of the sources of our health care dilemmas should make it far easier to rethink and renew medicine’s goals.
Medical anthropologist Kaufman (U. of Calif., San Francisco) interviewed seven doctors, eminent in their fields, and trained during the 1920s and 1930s. She interviewed them between 1987 and 1989 (they were all between the 80-83 years old), seeking their life stories and their feelings and thinking about the shape of American medical education and care today. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Among the many studies of aging and the aged, there is comparatively little material in which the aged speak for themselves. In this compelling study, Sharon Kaufman encourages just such expression, recording and presenting the voices of a number of old Americans. Her informants tell their life stories and relate their most personal feelings about becoming old. Each story is unique, and yet, presented together, they inevitable weave a clear pattern, one that clashes sharply with much current gerontological thought. With this book, Sharon Kaufman allows us to understand the experience of the aging by listening to the aged themselves. Kaufman, while maintaining objectivity, is able to draw an intimate portrait of her subjects. We come to know these people as individuals and we become involved with their lives. Through their words, we find that the aging process is not merely a period of sensory, functional, economic, and social decline. Old people continue to participate in society, and--more important--continue to interpret their participation in the social world. Through themes constructed from these stories, we can see how the old not only cope with losses, but how they create new meaning as they reformulate and build viable selves. Creating identity, Kaufman stresses, is a lifelong process. Sharon Kaufman's book will be of interest and value not only to students of gerontology and life span development, and to professionals in the field of aging, but to everyone who is concerned with the aging process itself. As Sharon Kaufman says, "If we can find the sources of meaning held by the elderly and see how individuals put it all together, we will go a long way toward appreciating the complexity of human aging and the ultimate reality of coming to terms with one's whole life.
From the harrowing journal notes of a suffering woman in the throes of mold/mycotoxins injustice, comes the real life mold saga of the Pawlak family. A courageous, God fearing family of four finds themselves crossing over from home owners to homeless, the week our nation was attacked, due to what TIME magazine called the” Biblical plague of the century”, MOLD! Come peer into the life of a family that lost it all, their home, personal belongings, finances, jobs, friends and almost their lives. Mold victims, survivors and ultimately emerging as a more than conquerors family, IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD brings to life the painful realism of toxic injury due to mold /mycotoxin exposure as well as addressing the social stigma of the horrendous myth that mold is nontoxic. IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD resonates with passion, inspiration and a spirit of determination to hang onto your healing and each other and watch something incredibly AWESOME come out of something horribly wrong. This book will challenge your thinking and perhaps you will no longer think, “It’s all in your head!” Great resource section for: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity/Environmental Illness, mold toxicity, chemical toxicity, healthy homes, physician referrals, much more!
At the turn of the 20th century, Sharon's very existence was threatened by the collapse of the local iron industry as the town's economy and population began to decline. However, the popularity of automobile transportation and Sharon's accessible distance from New York attracted a class of wealthy visitors who fell in love with the rolling hills and quiet valleys. This new weekend population purchased land and built stately country homes, reigniting interest in the area. Steady growth in construction provided much-needed work, and commerce began to thrive again. Early businesses expanded, and new operations opened. Local residents could shop at stores run by the Gillette brothers and A.R. Woodward, fill their tanks at Herman Middlebrook's gas station, and have their health care needs attended to by doctors at the state-of-the-art Sharon Hospital, built in 1916. Eastern Europeans became the town's newest residents, taking advantage of the affordable, cleared land to fuel a large number of highly successful farms. Sharon's residents thrived as they reshaped their town, welcoming newcomers and nurturing a community of inclusion that lasts to the present day.
This report on the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of the National Center for Education Statistics presents survey estimates for data on public and private schools, school principals, and teachers. Data reported for schools include particular programs or services offered, number of schools with students receiving Chapter 1 services or free or reduced-price lunch, and graduation and college application rates. Data reported for principals include educational level, experience, and salary. Similar data are reported for teachers, along with data on the number and percentage of continuing and newly hired full-time equivalent teachers. The approximately 81,000 public schools and 26,000 private schools in the survey account for about 76% and 24% respectively of the almost 107,000 schools in the United States in 1993-94. About 41.6 million children, about 89%, were enrolled in the public schools, and about 5 million were in private schools. Ten sections of Technical Notes present information about survey methodology. Twenty-six tables in the text and 26 standard error tables in Appendix A present survey findings. (SLD)
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