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Title: The way we die: Listening to the terminally ill Rating: 2.6 out of 4 Reference: Director & producer, Jonathan Mednick. Library of Congress subjects: Terminal care Medical personnel and patient Physician and patient Health counseling Death Medical technology--Decision-making Life and death, Power over--Decision-making Sociology subjects: Aging & gerontology The body Ethnographic methods Health & medicine Science & technology Reviews and Numerical Ratings 3 This slow-paced video emphasizes the different experiences or meanings of health & quality of life for individuals who are dying as well as their families, as well as raising questions about societal discomfort with death & illness. The strong emotional pull of the video still manages to avoid completely objectifying the subjects of the video and offers students a chance to consider questions in the context of real relationships & the sadness that comes with them, rather than the abstractness of a textbook. The implications of traditional medical models of educating doctors are examined reflexively in contrast to a practice of medicine which is centered around an ethic of empathy for patients. Although the focus is on four patients, it retains a somewhat doctor-centered view of the organization of health care practices. For lectures on phenomenology; social organization of health & dying. Patti Phillips 1 Appropriate for a psychology or nursing ethics course. When viewing this video, I felt it had no sense of purpose and was irrelevant for a sociology class. The content was very dull and the video itself very time-consuming. Even though students across the curriculum can relate to the topic, they will not find the video rich in educational purpose - therefore, it is not suitable for a lecture or tutorial discussion. It lacks clarity, facts, data, sociological theories, and terms. For 1st & 2nd year students. Minh Hoang (undergraduate) 3 Close encounters with dying lives, through a seemingly obtrusive lens, is a difficult story to ignore. The viewer is deeply engaged and affected, at the same time as feeling guilty about the voyeuristic format. Raises the issue of our inability to understand and empathise with situations we know nothing about, shows how those who assume expert status become accountable in these situations. Three stories provide varying perspectives of those who struggle to live, those who live to die peacefully, those who look after or work amongst the dying, and those who want to change the way this work is done. Ellen Chang 3 At what cost do we prolong people’s lives? Somehow, with advancement in medicine, doctors & even family members feel they have an obligation to the patient and/or a right as physicians to apply all the necessary or available means of prolonging live. Some fundamental issues have been raised here: what does the patient want? How would the patient like to be treated? What should the physician’s & family’s responses be? It’s worth mentioning is that all the home caregivers were females, which begs the questions: what kinds of support systems are available to these caregivers, who are predominantly females? This would be a good choice for the curriculum especially in Sociology of Health courses or in courses on work & industry. A good idea would also be to juxtapose this video with the way that other cultures deal with dying in order to allay some of the fear surrounding death & dying. Jennifer Lewis-Phillips (undergraduate) 3 Emotionally intense, parts are so painful to watch
that discussion immediately after the video could seem insensitive.
Avoids the spectacular. Offers a not-quite sociological critique from
within the medical profession of iatrogenic illness & calls for
empathic treatment. Shows how both patients & their families are
affected. Lecture topics: iatrogenic illness, bioethics, phenomenology
of death/dying/pain. Kathy Bischoping & Riley Olstead
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