A Midwife through the Dying Process

Timothy Quill's book provides a rich resource for teaching health care students. The lessons learned from these moving stories will be extremely important for their careers as healers and will provide them with a look into the real heart of our profession. The stories are also lessons for patients and their families, showing us the fundamental shared humanity of very different individuals who are dying. -- Christine K. Cassel, M.D., Mount Sinai Medical Center We won't all be lucky enough to have Dr. Quill at our bedsides when we die, but we can have him as a storyteller. These stories are more than inspiring; they're important, wise, and simply wonderful to read. -- Betty Rollin, author of Last Wish

Here are the stories of nine individuals and their very different endings, common only in each person's struggle to confront issues of law and ethics and to realize a "good"death.Approximately two-thirds of deaths in the United States involve a doctor's partnership with an individual, whether it be for the administration of pain relief or sedation or for the act of discontinuing or not beginning life-sustaining treatment. In A Midwife through the Dying Process, Timothy Quill, M.D., explores that partnership and the complex end-of-life issues that surround physician-assisted death. Here are the stories of nine individuals and their very different endings, common only in each person's struggle to confront issues of law and ethics and to realize a "good"death.