Life and death in intensive care / Joan Cassell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cassell, Joan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Critical care medicine--New Zealand.

Critical care medicine.

Critical care medicine--United States.

Surgical intensive care--New Zealand.

Surgical intensive care.

Surgical intensive care--United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 233 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Life and Death in Intensive Care offers a unique portrait of the surgical intensive care unit (SICU), the place in medical centers and hospitals where patients with the gravest medical conditions-from comas to terminal illness-are treated. Author Joan Cassell employs the concept of ""moral economies"" to explain the dilemmas that patients, families, and medical staff confront in treatment. Drawing upon her fieldwork conducted in both the United States and New Zealand, Cassell compares the moral outlooks and underlying principles of SICU nurses, residents, intensivists, and surgeons

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction Moonscape: The Surgical Intensive Care Unit; 1 A Caring Ethic: Nurses and the Dilemma of Powerlessness; 2 The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: The Residents; 3 Diverse Universes of Medical Discourse: The Fellows; 4 The Attendings; 5 Is Death the Enemy, or Suffering?; 6 Confronting Death in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit; 7 Intensive Caring in New Zealand; 8 Going Gentle into that Good Night: Death in Auckland; 9 Focusing on the Bottom Line; 10 The Dominion of Death; Appendix "Hard" Science, "Soft" Science, Social Science: The Anxiety of Methods; Notes; References; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-228) and index.

ISBN:

9786611093914

9781281093912

1281093912

9781592133376

1592133371

OCLC:

476074951