This groundbreaking book uncovers the hidden world of illicit physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Through the frank and often troubling first-hand accounts of health professionals who have been involved in assisted death, the book records for the first time this secret but real area of medical and nursing practice. Through face-to-face interviews with these "angels of death, " Roger S. Magnusson explores the social practices, relationships, and networks that constitute "underground" euthanasia. How is assisted death ...
Read More
This groundbreaking book uncovers the hidden world of illicit physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Through the frank and often troubling first-hand accounts of health professionals who have been involved in assisted death, the book records for the first time this secret but real area of medical and nursing practice. Through face-to-face interviews with these "angels of death, " Roger S. Magnusson explores the social practices, relationships, and networks that constitute "underground" euthanasia. How is assisted death actually practiced within health care settings? What are the issues that surround the making of such a momentous decision? How do health care workers justify their attitudes and actions in this area? Angels of Death offers detailed answers to these questions and many others. The doctors, nurses, and therapists who were interviewed pseudonymously for this study work in the HIV/AIDS communities in the United States and Australia. Their perspectives and practices, their attitudes and feelings, illuminate the assisted death debate and expose a variety of disturbing issues, including the reality of "botched attempts, " euthanasia without consent, and unduly hasty measures to bring about death. The testimony of medical practitioners, combined with Magnusson's thoughtful assessment of the issues, will be of intense interest to both opponents and advocates of proposals to legalize euthanasia.
Read Less
Add this copy of Angels of Death – Exploring the Euthanasia Underground to cart. $12.90, good condition, Sold by Anybook rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lincoln, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2002 by Yale University Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has hardback covers. In good all round condition. Dust jacket in good condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 800grams, ISBN: 9780300094398.
Add this copy of Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground to cart. $15.80, good condition, Sold by HPB-Red rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2002 by Yale University Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used textbooks may not include companion materials such as access codes, etc. May have some wear or limited writing/highlighting. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground to cart. $15.80, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2002 by Yale University Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground to cart. $27.15, like new condition, Sold by Bestsellers Returns rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hereford, HEREFORDSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2002 by Yale University Press.
Add this copy of Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground to cart. $53.21, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2002 by Yale University Press.
Add this copy of Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground to cart. $109.43, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2002 by Yale University Press.
Add this copy of Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground to cart. $2,353.50, new condition, Sold by BWS Bks rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Ferndale, NY, UNITED STATES, published 2002 by Yale Univ Pr.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New. 0300094396. *** FREE UPGRADE to Courier/Priority Shipping Upon Request *** – – *** IN STOCK AND IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR SHIPMENT-BRAND NEW, FLAWLESS COPY, NEVER OPENED-336 pages--DESCRIPTION: Roger Magnusson's Angels of Death describes the practice of extralegal assisted suicide and euthanasia by physicians, nurses, technicians, and other health care professionals who provide care to seriously ill patients and patients with AIDS who are dying. It is based on a snowball sample of 49 detailed interviews carried out over a period of three years with health professionals specializing in the care of patients with the human immunodeficiency virus and AIDS, principally in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, and in San Francisco. This book is about cooperative euthanasia--that is, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia occurring underground, mainly among patients with AIDS at home and those in large, tertiary-care hospitals in the United States and Australia. It describes networking among sympathetic physicians, nurses, and other health care workers and traces patterns of referral. It portrays ways in which health care professionals provide advice about drugs, assistance to those who wish to obtain drugs (often from an underground pharmacy), and informal psychiatric assessments. It also describes how they manipulate hospital procedures, fabricate information when signing death certificates, and collaborate with funeral directors in the orchestration and general facilitation of assisted dying at the bedside. It describes ways they may support both the patient and the family as well as debrief the family after a death. In Angels of Death (the name given to informal groups of physicians and nurses known to be willing to provide assistance in suicide or euthanasia), Magnusson finds, as have other researchers, that cooperative aid-in-dying is easier and more direct in the community than in the hospital but that it frequently still occurs in hospital settings. Some occasions of cooperative euthanasia involve direct, deliberate, life-ending measures: "A common example of shared involvement was for one health care worker to access the patient's vein, while another injected the drugs." Other occasions involve stretching applications of the principle of double effect, particularly in deaths that involved "understood, " deliberate overdoses of morphine: The physician in charge of Erin's unit...Approached Erin [a nurse] about another distressed patient they were caring for. ‘Use as much morphine as you need, ' said the physician. ‘I'll sign for it. ' Erin was taken by surprise. ‘Do you know what I mean? ' said the physician. ‘I'm not sure, ' said Erin. ‘Do you want me to make him comfortable, or do you want me to make him ultimately comfortable? ' ‘Yes, ' replied the physician, ambiguously. The patient died that night. Magnusson, professor of law at the University of Sydney, and his associate, Peter H. Ballis, of Monash University, also in Australia, applied considerable skill in eliciting first-hand accounts from physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals working in legally delicate settings, and as a result they obtained very revealing interviews. They stress that the physicians involved in these cooperative networks are "not isolated and wild-eyed miscreants acting from the fringes of their professions" but rather respected, mainstream physicians. Underground euthanasia is a "culture of deception, " and it is practiced everywhere, although Magnusson observes that it is "more deeply entrenched, with a longer and richer history" in California than in Australia. Angels of Death has several limitations. The study was limited to patients with AIDS in cities where large, interactive, and mutually supportive populations of gay men have helped shape the nature of health care. Its methodology involved reportorial interviews that were not cross-checked by interviewers of different background commitments. Most...
