Good Death

Michael Young is Director of and Lesley Cullen is a Research Officer at the Institute of Community Studies. Michael Young is the author of The Rise of the Meritocracy and co-author, with Peter Willmott, of Family and Kinship in East London.

'This very exceptional book should be essential reading for all professionals who are working with terminally ill people; it contains a rare and compassionate insight into cancer.' - Community Care'This is research of a quality that makes us think about being human, about life and death, as well as about provision for people who are terminally ill and for the bereaved.' - Nursing Times'Many professional and lay readers will be interested in this vivid account of the experience of dying from cancer today and its challenging consumer based views on how to improve services.' - British Medical Journal'The accounts of conversations with dying people and their families powerfully convey their experiences of facing death and bereavement...I would like to make these accounts, particularly those about doctors and hospitals, compulsory reading for medical students, and perhaps more importantly, for more experienced doctors whose compassion for and empathy with patients has become jaded.' - Ageing and Society'As reading for those involved with the dying it is invaluable, giving insights, through the work with patients and their carers, into the experience of dying.' - Social Sciences in Health'This is a book that will be widely read for many years to come and will be admired not least for the way that it intertwines the narrative of the lives of 14 people as they approach their deaths with the sociological and psychological scholarship that has proliferated since the mid-1970s, following the innovative work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in the US and Colin Murray-Parkes in the UK.' - Aids Care'Offers an extraordinary overview of death...a useful text for student doctors who would benefit from knowing what information patients with cancer require and how the information given by doctors is perceived...easy to read and free from jargon ... student health professionals with a limited experience of death may find the personal accounts useful to help identify the emotive issues patients and carers frequently wish to discuss given the opportunity.' - Journal of Nursing Management

• Preface—personal note 1 Slow death 2 The patients 3 The battle for independence 4 The carer at home 5 The doctor 6 Pain and euthanasia 7 Beyond our care but not our caring 8 The afterlife 9 In conclusion: collective immortality