Dying and Death in Law and Medicine: A Forensic Primer for Health and Legal Professionals

(Hardback)

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While health professionals may be adequately informed about the legal aspects of many specialised areas of medicine and nursing, they may not totally understand the law applicable to cases of dying patients, or even the legal definition of death itself. In the wake of advances in medical technology, recent court decisions on the right to die, the enactment of natural death and brain death statutes, advance directives and living wills, and growing use of organ transplantation, there has been widespread concern about the legal and ethical issues surounding these subjects. This book, written by a lawyer-thanatologist, should satisfy these needs. It brings together case and statutory law applicable to dying patients, the right to die, advance directives, brain death, and organ transplantation, thus formulating a law of dying and death. It is also useful as a self-help law finder. Although occasions that require consultation with a lawyer will arise, this work gives health professionals practical guidance on where and how to find legal counsel. Medical decisions and issues that once were the sole province of doctors, hospitals, patients and families have become matters of increasing judicial and legislative attention.

Reviews

An excellent presentation of perspectives of US case and statutory law on dying and death that examines how law, medicine, and thanatology intersect around questions created by medical technology. This book should be read by all health professionals, pastoral counselors and hospice professionals, attorneys offering services to individuals facing the end of life, and families of such individuals as well. General; advanced undergraduate through professional.-Choice
This book makes a valuable contribution in presenting a comprehensive, up-to-date presentation of the legal aspects of dying and death. It will go a long way toward helping health professionals understand the law and judicial system, This book is recommended for public library and health science center library collections.-A.L.B.R.
This is a unique and excellent book which should be of considerable value to many in the medical, health care and legal professions. Although principally for and about the dying patient, his rights and choices, it is significantly couched in technical language for the professional.-The Journal of Religion and Psychical Research
"This book makes a valuable contribution in presenting a comprehensive, up-to-date presentation of the legal aspects of dying and death. It will go a long way toward helping health professionals understand the law and judicial system, This book is recommended for public library and health science center library collections."-A.L.B.R.
"This is a unique and excellent book which should be of considerable value to many in the medical, health care and legal professions. Although principally for and about the dying patient, his rights and choices, it is significantly couched in technical language for the professional."-The Journal of Religion and Psychical Research
"An excellent presentation of perspectives of US case and statutory law on dying and death that examines how law, medicine, and thanatology intersect around questions created by medical technology. This book should be read by all health professionals, pastoral counselors and hospice professionals, attorneys offering services to individuals facing the end of life, and families of such individuals as well. General; advanced undergraduate through professional."-Choice

Author Bio

ARTHUR S. BERGER is Director of the International Institute for the Study of Death, President of the Survival Research Foundation, member of the Broward General Medical Center Bioethics Committee, and Vice -President of Cross-Cultural Affairs of the Foundation of Thantology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. Listed in Who's Who in the South and Southwest and Who's Who Among Human Services Professionals, he is the co-editor of To Die or Not to Die Cross-Disciplinary, Cultural, and Legal Perspectives on the Right to Choose Death (Praeger, 1990), and Perspectives on Death and Dying (1989). He is also the author of several books including the critically acclaimed Lives and Letters in American Parapsychology, selected by Choice for its outstanding academic list, and the co-author of the Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research (1991).