WHAT DYING PEOPLE WANT
Practical Wisdom for the End-of-Life
David Kuhl
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Public Affairs, 2002
317pp
ISBN 1-58648-197-5
RRP $US14, £7.
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In this excellent book, Kuhl uses patients’ stories to take us through the background, the meaning, the practicalities, and the
benefits of providing appropriate and meaningful end-of-life care. The first four chapters are about dealing with a terminal illness on a practical level. The second five deal with the psychological
and spiritual experience of that journey.
In the introduction it states that this is a book for patients with a terminal illness although I fear it would be too weighty for many of
the patients I see. However, I think it is a first-class primer for anybody who works in hospice and palliative care who wants to better understand the non-physical aspects of the care we deliver.
Roger Woodruff,
Director of Palliative Care, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia
(April 2004)
Author Information
Dr. David Kuhl is a palliative care physician at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Table of Contents
1. Time and Anxiety
2. Bad News
3. Physical Pain
4. Being touched; being in touch
5. Life review
6. Speaking the truth
7. Longing to belong
8. Self-realisation: Who am I?
9. Transcendence
Conclusion: Embracing Life
Appendix: Talking to terminally ill patients: Guidelines for Physicians
Bibliography
Index
