Book: Dying Bodies and Living Souls: Medical Care of the Soul
The copy on the cover of this book describes it as "a practical and healing guide to end-of-life issues for families, patients, and healthcare providers." As a handbook, it covers a variety of practical issues from advance directives and living wills to the emotional relationships between parents and adult children. As a healing guide, it indulges in far-ranging philosophical ruminations on the nature of the soul and the meaning of life. But it is as a guide for the medical community that Medical Care of the Soul by Bruce G. Bartlow, M.D., most distinguishes itself.
Like many people, health care professionals are sometimes ill-prepared for dealing with end-of-life issues. Bartlow has a theory about this: "All the ‘busyness’ that our health care system piles up around the end of a life is an attempt to draw a thin veil over what we dread most: the fact that death waits for the families and health care providers as surely as for the patient being cared for at the moment."
Though Bartlow does not limit advice to health care professionals, he returns to this issue repeatedly. In the end, the book speaks more profoundly to the health care provider than to patients and their families. Unfortunately, many readers will find Bartlow's metaphysical explorations off-putting. Yet approached with an open mind, this book has much to offer. Bartlow’s message is clear: If health care providers are not themselves comfortable with their own mortality and that of their loved ones, they will never be able to provide good end-of-life care. Readers who endure the reflections on souls and spirits will be rewarded with a refreshing view of humanity, and the importance of remembering that a human being is not simply a body to be repaired when it malfunctions or abandoned when it is beyond repair. – Avery Hurt
Online: Completing a Life
Completing a Life is an interactive CD-ROM and on-line tool that helps patients and families learn about the practical, emotional, spiritual and medical issues faced by those dealing with advanced illness. Completing a Life offers a rich resource for people who are living with advanced illness. With more than a hundred separate topic pages linked by easy-to-use navigation tools, it allows anyone to chart a personal pathway through the content. Users can find the information they need most whenever they need it.
The product works with a computer's web browser, and the entire contents can be accessed within that familiar environment. The material contained in Completing a Life covers a range of concerns, addressing such areas as getting good pain relief, talking with health professionals, family communication, writing advance directives, and finding answers to spiritual questions.
Completing a Life covers three main topics:
The CD-ROM is scheduled for release this fall, but the material for Completing A Life is available now on the web at http://commtechlab.msu.edu.sites/completingalife. It was created at Michigan State University by the Communication Technology Laboratory and the Palliative Care Education & Research Program and funded by Michigan State University Cancer Center and Office of Libraries, Computing and Technology, the Henry Ford Health System, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Michigan Department of Community Health.