This is a quite fascinating collection of sixty-one personal reflections about death and dying. The interviews were performed by the renowned
Pulitzer-prize winning author of ten other books of oral history, Studs Terkel. To his credit, we hear virtually nothing of his opinions or philosophy, just the stories of those being interviewed,
told in their own way.
Here are the thoughts of paramedics and emergency-room physicians, and the feelings of the acutely bereaved. There are memories of a hibakysha,
a survivor of the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima, as well as men who fought in the second World War and in Vietnam. More poignantly, there are the views of carers and patients with AIDS; could
palliative care have been so poor that they regarded Dr. Jack Kevorkian as a Saint? The problem of multiple bereavements is stressed and the question asked whether the world is ignoring the problem
of AIDS in Africa in the same way that it was ignored in the USA in the 1980s. There is a Mexican celebrating the Day of the Dead. And much more.
This book is about palliative care - the advantages of it, and what happens if there isn’t any. I found it compelling reading and would recommend
it strongly to anyone who works in palliative care.
Roger Woodruff,
Director of Palliative Care, Austin & Repatriation Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia
(January 2003)
