Finding Dignity at the End of Life: A Spiritual Reflection on Palliative Care

Finding Dignity at the End of Life discusses the need for palliative care as a human right and explores a whole-person methodology for use in treatment.

The book examines the concept of palliative care as a holistic human right from the perspective of multiple aspects of faith, ideology, culture, and nationality. Integrating a humanities-based approach, chapters provide detailed discussions of spirituality, suffering, and healing from scholars from around the world. Within each chapter, the authors address a different cultural and religious focus by examining how this topic relates to questions of inherent dignity, both ethically and theologically, and how different spiritual lenses may inform our interpretation of medical outcomes.

Mental health practitioners, allied professionals, and theologians will find this a useful and reflective guide to palliative care and its connection to faith, spirituality, and culture.

Kathleen Benton is president and CEO for Hospice Savannah, Inc. She is an experienced clinical ethics and palliative care director with a history of working in the hospital and healthcare industry.

Renzo Pegoraro is a doctor, moral theologian, and bioethicist. He is chancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Life and professor of bioethics at the Faculty of Theology, University of Padua.