This casebook provides a set of cases that reveal the current complexity of medical decision-making, ethical reasoning, and communication at the end of life for hospitalized patients and those who care for and about them. End-of-life issues are a controversial part of medical practice and of everyday life. Working through these cases illuminates both the practical and philosophical challenges presented by the moral problems that surface in contemporary end-of-life care. Each case involved real people, with varying goals and constraints,who tried to make the best decisions possible under demanding conditions. Though there were no easy solutions, nor ones that satisfied all stakeholders, there are important lessons to be learned about the ways end-of-life care can continue to improve. This advanced casebook is a must-read for medical and nursing students, students in the allied health professions, health communication scholars, bioethicists, those studying hospital and public administration, as well as for practicing physicians and educators.
Lori A. Roscoe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida, where she earned a PhD in Aging Studies. She teaches health communication, communication ethics, and end-of-life studies to undergraduate and graduate students, and has also taught in the medical school and the MBMH Program (Master's in Bioethics and Medical Humanities) in the USF Morsani College of Medicine. Her research focuses on communication at the end of life; past projects included examining the factors that led people to seek Jack Kevorkian's help in dying, family dynamics in the Terri Schiavo case, improving access to end -of-life care, and patient-physician communication. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, and serves on the ethics committees of several hospitals and hospices.
David P. Schenck is Professor Emeritus of the University of South Florida and is currently Affiliate Professor of Otolaryngology (Biomedical Ethics) in the USF Morsani College of Medicine. His PhD is in medieval French language and literature; his training in biomedical ethics was developed over many years through formal and informal work. He has taught biomedical ethics courses in the USF Honors College, the MBMA Program (Master's in Bioethics and Medical Humanities) in the USF Morsani College of Medicine, the USF College of Nursing, and the Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Program at USF. He has conducted funded research on oral cancer in Hispanic migrant farm workers. He has over 20 years of experience on hospital ethics committees and is a member of the IRB of a regional hospital consortium.
