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WORK TITLE: Modern Death
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Durham
STATE: NC
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://medicine.duke.edu/education-and-training/our-trainees/haider-warraich * https://scholar.harvard.edu/haiderwarraich/biocv * https://scholar.harvard.edu/haiderwarraich
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2011202049
Descriptive conventions:
rda
LC classification: PR9540.9.W27
Personal name heading:
Warraich, Haider
Variant(s): Haider Warraich
Found in: Auras of the jinn, 2010: t.p. (Haider Warraich) p. 4 of
cover (currently a res. fellow at Harvard Medical Sch.)
================================================================================
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Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Born in Pakistan; married.
EDUCATION:Received degree from Aga Khan University Medical College, 2009.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author, physician, and cardiologist. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, physician; Harvard University, teacher.
AVOCATIONS:Hosting dinner parties.
AWARDS:Ginsburg Humanism in Medicine fellow, 2011-2013; Duke University Medical Center fellow, 2015.
WRITINGS
Also author of the novel, Auras of the Jinn, 2010. Contributor to periodicals, including Bulletin of the World Health Organization, New York Times, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Guardian, Lancet, Atlantic, Boston Globe, Journal of the American Medical Association, LA Times, and New England Journal of Medicine.
SIDELIGHTS
Hailing from Pakistan, Haider Warraich relocated to America shortly after completing his first medical degree, for the sake of furthering his career. He is aligned with Duke University, where he serves as a fellow in the field of cardiology. Prior to this position, he worked under a fellowship with Harvard, where he also completed his residency. In addition to his fellowships, his work in his field has also earned him a runner-up Young Investigator Award. Warraich has contributed further to the world of cardiology through extensive writing—a pastime he has always enjoyed. He took up writing and publishing while still studying, having had his work featured previously in the New York Times. He has also dabbled in fiction work. In the year 2010, he released Auras of the Jinn, a novel.
Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life is more closely aligned with Warraich’s medical and academic work, meant to explore the history of human interaction with death and how the industry has impacted modern culture—for better or worse. As Warraich asserts, the latter has shaped our current perceptions of death and dying much more than the former. His main argument is that we are too uncomfortable with and fearful of death on multiple dimensions, and this harms the dying. In making this claim, Warraich goes over the history of human cultural views of death and the development of medical technology as a means of extending life—machines to keep people breathing when their lungs can no longer manage independently, paddles for shocking the heart back into beating steadily. However, with these innovations come a crop of new and complicated questions, all of which involve the best time to let an individual pass on and the morals of keeping someone alive. Furthermore, whose voice should professionals heed more when it comes to these decisions: their own expertise, the wishes of the patient, or the patient’s loved ones? In some circumstances, these voices can become muddled or altogether lost, especially in cases where the patient cannot answer for themselves.
Warraich points out, throughout his argument, that some innovations have made it easier to make medical decisions regarding death, such as advanced directives, code statuses, and similar forms of documentation. He also touches upon some of the more famous incidents involving death rights and when the best decision to make for the patient became unclear. This includes Karen Quinlan, whose family’s decision for her long-term care led to a nationally observed court case. In addition to the legal, medical, and moral aspects of death, Warraich also takes a look at the modern cultural side of it by examining how technology and innovation helps us cope with death and loss in ways we couldn’t before. Through Modern Death, Warraich hopes to help society build a better relationship with death so they can face the reality of it in a healthier manner. In an issue of Kirkus Reviews, one contributor called Modern Death “an important contribution to a serious discussion of profound life-and-death issues.” Aaron Klink, a Library Journal reviewer, commented that “[Warraich] goes beyond when discussing the role the digital sphere plays in grief and memorialization.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly felt that “Warraich eloquently explores the act of dying.” On the Scotsman Online, Claire Black wrote: “There are no easy answers here, but Warraich is refreshingly honest.” She went on to add: “This is useful information, vital one might say, and unsurprisingly not always easy to digest.” A writer on the Pages of Julia blog stated: “Well served by Warraich’s professional expertise and earnest emphasis, this is an indispensable entry into the conversation about death.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, December 1, 2016, Tony Miksanek, review of Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life, p. 21.
Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2016, review of Modern Death.
Library Journal, February 1, 2017, Aaron Klink, review of Modern Death, p. 96.
Psychology Today, January-February, 2017, Matt Huston, “Dispatches from the end of life,” review of Modern Death, p. 18.
Publishers Weekly, December 5, 2016, review of Modern Death, p. 61.
ONLINE
Harvard, https://scholar.harvard.edu/ (August 30, 2017), “Physician, Researcher, Author of Modern Death – How Medicine Changed the End of Life,” author profile.
News & Observer, http://www.newsobserver.com/ (November 15, 2016), Tom Gasparoli, “Duke doctor writes deeply on modern death,” author interview.
NPR, http://www.npr.org/ (January 30, 2017), “Doctor Considers The Pitfalls Of Extending Life And Prolonging Death,” author interview.
Pages of Julia, https://pagesofjulia.com/ (January 18, 2017), review of Modern Death.
Scotsman Online, http://www.scotsman.com (August 2, 2017), Claire Black, review of Modern Death.*
Haider Warraich
Gale Biography in Context, February 1, 2017
Content Level = Basic
Listen
Born: Pakistan
Other Names: Warraich, Haider Javed
Nationality: Pakistani
Occupation: Cardiologist
Haider Warraich is a Pakistani physician and author. After attending medical school in Pakistan, he moved to the United States to further his skills in internal medicine and cardiology. Between studying and working on his residency, Warraich wrote numerous articles about death in the modern age. He published Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life in February of 2017.
Early Success
Haider Javed Warraich was born and raised in Pakistan. Although he eventually attended medical school, his first passion was writing. In an interview with the Aga Khan University Alumni Association of North America, Warraich said his interest in telling stories started when he was young. He said, "Very early on when I was ten, I drew a comic book about a crime fighting mayor in Karachi [Pakistan]." His first official publication was a poem in 1999. He then wrote articles for different local newspapers.
Warraich continued writing as he entered medical school. He graduated from Aga Khan University Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2009. He was named valedictorian of his graduating class. The following year, he published his first novel, Auras of the Jinn, which contained elements of life in Pakistan. It was distributed throughout India and Pakistan. The same year, Warraich moved to the United States to continue his medical education at Harvard University.
U.S. Education
After his novel was published, Warraich deviated from fiction writing. During his internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School, he began to contribute to medical journals. After his residency, Warraich became a Katherine Swan Ginsburg Humanism in Medicine fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 2011 to 2013. Afterward he remained in Boston, Massachusetts, to teach medicine at Harvard and work as a staff physician at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Warraich and his wife moved to Durham, North Carolina, where he began a cardiology fellowship at Duke University Medical Center in 2015. The same year, the physician won second place for the Young Investigator Award in clinical cardiology from the American College of Cardiology.
Warraich continued writing in his free time and published dozens of articles in several medical journals. He also contributed op-ed pieces to the New York Times. In 2017 he published his first nonfiction book, Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life. For the work, he combined interviews, resources, and research into a comprehensive discussion of the modern end of the life experience. Warraich told NPR about his inspiration for the book, "So many times I've found myself in the room where there are people who were so much more experienced in life than I was, yet knew so little about death and dying. And so I wanted to write a book so that people could go into those really, really difficult places and feel like they're armed with information."
Further Readings
Online
"Doctor Considers the Pitfalls of Extending Life and Prolonging Death," NPR, http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/01/30/512426568/doctor-considers-the-pitfalls-of-extending-life-and-prolonging-death (March 19, 2017).
"Featured Alumnus: Dr. Haider Javed Warraich, AKU '09," Aga Khan University Alumni Association of North America, https://akuaana.org/featured-alumni/featured-alumnus-dr-haider-javed-warraich-aku-09 (March 19, 2017).
"Haider Warraich, MBBS," Duke University School of Medicine, https://medicine.duke.edu/education-and-training/our-trainees/haider-warraich (March 19, 2017).
"Haider Warraich, MD: Brief Biography," Harvard University, http://scholar.harvard.edu/haiderwarraich/biocv (March 19, 2017).
"Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life," Macmillan Publishers, http://us.macmillan.com/moderndeath/haiderwarraich/9781250104588/ (March 19, 2017).
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2017 Gale, Cengage Learning.
Source Citation
"Haider Warraich." Gale Biography in Context, Gale, 2017. Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1650010647/BIC1?u=schlager&xid=3e77626d. Accessed 14 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|K1650010647
Haider Warraich, MD
Physician, Researcher, Author of Modern Death - How Medicine Changed the End of Life
2301 Erwin Road, DUMC 3485
Durham NC 27710 Contact
Brief Biography
As a physician, writer, and clinical researcher, Haider Warraich wears many hats that have come together in my upcoming book, Modern Death - How Medicine Changed the End of Life, which will be launched on February 7th, 2017, by St Martin's Press/Macmillan. The book uses science to understand death all the way from a cellular level to what it means to us as a society, uses research to trace our relationship with death all the way from the most ancient burial grounds to what it is like to die in the modern medical-industrial complex. This book is the synthesis of years of work and experience and includes more than 600 references and dozens of interviews from patients to Nobel Prize winners.
He writes most frequently for the New York Times but also contributes to the Guardian, the Atlantic, the LA Times and the Boston Globe amongst others. He writes about all things that fall within the purview of healthcare, from health policy to the daily interactions between patients and their physicians.
Dr Warraich is currently training in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center, Durham NC. Before this, he was a staff physician at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and instructor at Harvard Medical School, where he also received my training in internal medicine. His writing has been widely featured in the media and he has made appearances on CNN, PBS and FOX as well as BBC Radio and NPR to discuss them.
Dr Warraich is also an avid clincal researcher and has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, Lancet Infectious Diseases and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization amongst others.
Doctor Considers The Pitfalls Of Extending Life And Prolonging Death
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January 30, 20172:14 PM ET
Heard on Fresh Air
Fresh Air
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Humans have had to face death and mortality since since the beginning of time, but our experience of the dying process has changed dramatically in recent history.
Haider Warraich, a fellow in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center, tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that death used to be sudden, unexpected and relatively swift — the result of a violent cause, or perhaps an infection. But, he says, modern medicines and medical technologies have lead to a "dramatic extension" of life — and a more prolonged dying processes.
"We've now ... introduced a phase of our life, which can be considered as 'dying,' in which patients have terminal diseases in which they are in and out of the hospital, they are dependent in nursing homes," Warraich says. "That is something that is a very, very recent development in our history as a species."
When Prolonging Death Seems Worse Than Death
Health
When Prolonging Death Seems Worse Than Death
Prolonging life might sound like a good thing, but Warraich notes that medical technologies often force patients, their loved ones and their doctors to make difficult, painful decisions. In his new book, Modern Death, he writes about a patient with end-stage dementia who screamed "kill me" as a feeding tube was inserted into his nose.
"This is probably one of the encounters that I had in residency that I have been unable to shake from my memory," Warraich says. "I think if you ask any physician, any nurse, any paramedic, they'll have many such stories to tell you."
Interview Highlights
On the importance of having a healthcare proxy, living will and advanced directive
After The Cranberries And Pie, Take Time To Talk About Death
Shots - Health News
After The Cranberries And Pie, Take Time To Talk About Death
One of the biggest problems that we face in not only modern society, but in societies of olden times as well, is that people have always been very afraid to talk about death. In many cultures it is considered bad luck to talk about death and it is thought to be a bad omen. I think to some extent that extends to this very day. But ... I think having a living will, having an advanced directive, or perhaps most importantly, having a designated healthcare proxy, someone who can help transmit your decisions to the team when you're not able to do so, is perhaps the most important thing that we can do for ourselves as patients and as human beings.
On giving CPR and knowing when to stop giving CPR
Modern Death
Modern Death
How Medicine Changed the End of Life
by Haider, M.D. Warraich
Hardcover, 324 pages
purchase
One of the things about CPR, Terry, is that almost everyone in medicine knows how to start CPR, when to start CPR, really what to do in CPR under even complex situations, but the one thing that almost no one really teaches us, and there are no guidelines for, is when to stop CPR. I think in some ways that is one of the biggest challenges that we in medicine face all the time. ...
I was actually working in the hospital last night and it was about 3 in the morning and I was called by one of my other colleagues who was another cardiology fellow, he asked me, "Haider, I need your help. I have a patient that we are doing CPR on," and he wanted some help from me. So I walked over to the intensive care unit, and the patient was in her 60s. ... There was an entire team in the room doing chest compressions on this woman, and they had been doing it for an hour and a half at that point, much, much, much longer than most CPRs last. ...
At the same time while this CPR was ongoing, the patient's family member, her daughter, was outside the room, and she was crying. ... Even though we could give her all the information ... that wasn't perhaps what she was looking for, because what we were asking her to think about or to do was one of the hardest things anyone has to ever bear, which was, "Do you want us to stop CPR?" And that's the type of thing that I don't think any of us can ever prepare for, especially when it's our parent that's involved.
On why he wrote a book about dying
Hospice Chaplain Reflects On Life, Death And The 'Strength Of The Human Soul'
Shots - Health News
Hospice Chaplain Reflects On Life, Death And The 'Strength Of The Human Soul'
I really wanted to find answers to some very, very basic questions, like what are the implications of the sort of life extension that we have achieved? What is the role of religion, not only a patient's religion but a physician's religion when it comes to dealing with the end of life? How is social media affecting how people experience the end of life? ...
So many times I've found myself in the room where there are people who were so much more experienced in life than I was, yet knew so little about death and dying. And so I wanted to write a book so that people could go into those really, really difficult places and feel like they're armed with information, that this isn't a completely foreign territory for them and that in some way could help them navigate and deal with the sort of difficult situations that lay ahead for them.
On the possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act
It is very unfortunate that health is so politicized in this country, because it doesn't have to be. Health and wellness aren't red or blue, and they shouldn't be, but unfortunately that is where we are. I hope that when policies are being enacted in DC, patient's voices, those who have benefited from the ACA, those who have gained insurance, those voices are not lost in the midst of all of this political activity.
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Dr. Haider Warraich has written medical and opinion pieces for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic.
Shawn Rocco/Duke Health
On immigrating to the U.S. from Pakistan
I came to the United States in 2010 and [until now] have only lived in an America in which Barack Obama was the president. I think in some ways Trump's victory has really shaken me, because of how invested I was in the idea that America is a special place, it's a truly multicultural society. And I'm still trying to understand, I think like so many others, just exactly what happened. Especially as a writer and as a physician I've tried to separate myself from my identity as a Muslim. I'd rather be known as a physician/scientist/writer who happens to be Pakistani, rather than a young Pakistani Muslim immigrant who happens to be a doctor and a writer, but I don't know. Given how things are changing, I'm not even sure if I'll be able to set that narrative for myself. That's a scary thought — to live an identity that is so politicized even when you wish for it to not be.
Duke doctor writes deeply on modern death
By Tom Gasparoli
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November 15, 2016 2:45 PM
Haider Warraich is a cardiology fellow at Duke Medical Center. When not treating ailing hearts, his byline shows up regularly in the New York Times, The Atlantic and The Guardian.
The physician is probing, provocative and poignant in addressing some of the most affecting issues in medicine and in the world.
Warraich caught my eye with a recent column (http://bit.ly/beyonddonoharm) on assisted suicide. He wrote, “We physicians need to reassess how we can help patients achieve their goals when the end is near.”
Warraich has a book due out in February called, “Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life.” I wanted to talk to this doctor with so much to say. I began by asking when he realized he was such a good writer.
Warraich: “I started penning short stories in high school. It wasn’t until I started writing that I truly felt connected to my work as a doctor and found inspiration.”
Q: How do you find time for all this?
Warraich: For me, writing is like a muscle that needs to be constantly worked out. A way to channel the noise within my brain into a cohesive voice.
Q: Tell me about your book.
Warraich: “So many times, I encountered patients and family members facing the end of life without any idea about what was going on. The book combines history, research and personal anecdotes into a description of how death and dying have evolved.”
Q: Near the end of a piece on when the body actually dies, you wrote: “As I see it, my life is as a person, not my body."
Warraich: “In medicine, we need to never lose sight that within the bodies that we treat with medications, surgeries and procedures live actual people, each of whom has their own world within them.”
Q: You were an Army “brat” – only it was the Pakistani Army. How did the moving around shape you?
Warraich: “I changed nine schools by the time I went to college, and I still feel like I carry that wanderlust within me.”
I see it as a blessing as well because I can show people perhaps a different type of Muslim, one that challenges people’s preconceived notions.
Haider Warraich
Q: What do you do besides being a cardiologist and writer-author?
Warraich: “This coming year, I am going to Africa and Asia to write about childhood malnutrition and will be taking photographs along the way.”
I interviewed Warraich one day before the election of Donald Trump as our next president. During the campaign, Trump called for Muslims to be banned from entering the U.S.
Q: Is it fair to say that being a Muslim in America is a burden as well as a blessing?
Warraich: “Being a Muslim is burdensome because you cannot have an apolitical existence. I see it as a blessing as well because I can show people perhaps a different type of Muslim, one that challenges people’s preconceived notions.
Q: Did you expect to find so much fear and intolerance?
Warraich: “I was surprised, but a deeper look at the history of this country makes this less an anomaly and more a recurrent phenomenon that we as a species just have to figure out.”
Q: Do you worry about this country?
Warraich: “America represents the most important idea that humanity has conjured – to build a society where everyone can find a place regardless of whatever permutations of DNA and culture they harken from. I believe it will always be a better place.”
Q: What's the coolest thing about being a new dad?
Warraich: “Eva is the most amiable baby ever. The fact that no matter what is happening around her, she remains obliviously joyful, is a gift every single day.”
Q: What do you do for fun?
Warraich: “My wife is an unbelievable chef, and we love hosting people and treating them to delicious Pakistani cuisine.”
Q: What are one or two of the memorable things you've experienced during your fellowship at Duke?
Warraich: “Watching some of our cardiac surgeons and cardiologists take care of critically ill patients at the drop of a dime, in the middle of the night, with the utmost amount of deft skill has been awe-inspiring. Everyone gets a chance, no matter how miniscule, no matter how unlikely.”
Warraich, Haider: MODERN DEATH
(Dec. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Warraich, Haider MODERN DEATH St. Martin's (Adult Nonfiction) $26.99 2, 7 ISBN: 978-1-250-10458-8
An examination of "our ongoing battle with aging, disease, and death." Notwithstanding the dramatic increase in life expectancy over the past century, death has become a taboo subject in polite society. "Never has death been as feared as it is today," writes Warraich, a cardiology fellow at Duke University Medical Center who expresses the hope that his book will play a part in encouraging a more "honest and open conversation about death" among physicians and among patients and their family members. He explains how advances in the understanding of cellular functioning, coupled with improvements in end-of life treatment such as the ability to resuscitate people with cardiac arrest, have essentially blurred the line between life and death. Consequently, thorny new practical and ethical considerations have arisen regarding quality of life and the right to die: when is it appropriate to terminate the life of a patient in a vegetative coma? Does such a patient have a right to die? If so, who should be empowered to decide when life support should be terminated? Warraich describes how doctors are frequently forced to make such on-the-spot decisions for unconscious patients when relatives are unavailable and in instances where family members disagree. He explains that their training predisposes them to favor life extension even when the prospects of recovery are minimal. The author reviews the well-publicized case of Karen Ann Quinlan to illustrate the conflicts that may arise between doctors and relatives, and he takes an unflinching look at the problem for family caregivers when patients remain at the point of death for prolonged periods. This leads him to a compassionate consideration of physically assisted suicide, instituted when a patient expresses the desire to terminate his or her life rather than suffer a terminal illness. Warraich concludes this sensitive review of a painful subject with guarded optimism that a cultural shift toward open discussion is now occurring. An important contribution to a serious discussion of profound life-and-death issues.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Warraich, Haider: MODERN DEATH." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473652196&it=r&asid=bf68c3a4f65d2041f6622c8ec400a304. Accessed 14 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A473652196
Warraich, Haider. Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life
Aaron Klink
142.2 (Feb. 1, 2017): p96.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Warraich, Haider. Modem Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life. St. Martin's. Feb. 2017.336p. notes, index. ISBN 9781250104588. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250104595. MED
Warraich (cardiology, Duke Univ.) provides an engaging look at the ways modern medical technologies shape the end of life, with perspectives and illustrations drawn from his ongoing work as a clinician. He begins where few books on this topic do, with an explanation of cellular death and its role in the death of a human being. Then he talks about "do not resuscitate" orders and explores the role of "advanced directives" and the ways in which they create clearer options for families, as well as the difficulties faced when decisions are delegated to others through power of attorney orders or "substitutionary decision making." The author also discusses controversial issues around assisted suicide from a physician's point of view. He further notes how the Internet and other social media technologies have influenced how we grieve. VERDICT While other texts have covered issues of medicine and the end of life, Warraich's goes beyond when discussing the role the digital sphere plays in grief and memorialization. Readers of Sharon R. Kaufman's And a Time To Die and Sherwin B. Nuland's How We Die will find an engaging and updated outlook in this work.--Aaron Klink, Duke Univ., Durham, NC
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Klink, Aaron. "Warraich, Haider. Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life." Library Journal, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 96. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479301312&it=r&asid=91fddad10d90339766d2852b877a9422. Accessed 14 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479301312
Dispatches from the end of life
Matt Huston
50.1 (January-February 2017): p18.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Sussex Publishers, Inc.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
MEDICAL ADVANCES have shifted the boundary between life and death, raising controversial questions for doctors and patients. Physician Haider Warraich zooms in on these issues in Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life, supplementing medical history with tales from the life-death border that are disturbing, bewildering, and inspiring.
Some of your cases involve deep uncertainty--in one, it's unclear whether the patient is even alive. I think for many patients, the only thing worse than a bad diagnosis is not knowing what's going on. At times I feel the need to simplify a complex situation. But when I know that there is no right answer, I tell patients, "Hey, we actually don't know." Sometimes that helps to ease some of their frustrations.
More people are spending their final days in hospitals and nursing homes. Why is the question of where we die so urgent? The vast majority of people, when surveyed, say that they want to die at home. People are used to being able to control things--not big things, but small things. At the hospital they lose all control over their schedule. They can't get out of bed without an alarm going off. They can't have a meal without their blood sugar being checked. And there is nothing more disempowering than dying.
How does communication within families about end-of-life issues need to change? So many times these conversations happen when patients are ill and afraid and have no time to process information. I think these talks are best had sooner, when people can appreciate what is truly important to them.
RETHINKING DEATH
1950s-60s: CPR, ventilators, and other innovations expand the doctor's death-defying toolkit, enabling patients with limited brain activity or other critical problems to persist.
1976: The parents of Karen Ann Quinlan, a comatose young woman, win a court battle to discontinue her life support. The decision helps empower patients and families to terminate care.
1981: A presidential commission proposes a law, adopted by most states, that recognizes the permanent absence of brain function--even when heart function remains--as legal death.
2013: Jahi McMath, a girl in California, is declared brain dead--a judgment disputed by her parents. The hospital is authorized by the court to release her body; her parents resume her care in New Jersey.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Huston, Matt. "Dispatches from the end of life." Psychology Today, Jan.-Feb. 2017, p. 18. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA476728713&it=r&asid=aff4e94ca6b31a37f83545b760b6b9a4. Accessed 14 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A476728713
Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life
263.50 (Dec. 5, 2016): p61.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life
Haider Warraich. St. Martin's, $26.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-250-10458-8
Warraich, a physician, writer, and clinical researcher, thoughtfully investigates the often alarming realities of death in early 2 lst-century America. For many it will be a "drawn-out slow burn" from a chronic illness, and where that end occurs depends largely on race and economic status. As medicine improves, it has para- . doxically made death "more harrowing and prolonged today than it has ever been before." For Warraich, the person who more than any other "would come to define modern death" was Karen Ann Quinlan, whose coma triggered a fight over keeping her on life support--a contentious battle that ended with a 1976 New Jersey Supreme Court decision that momentously introduced "the patient and the family member into medical decision making." Around the same time, brain death was defined in a way that has made many modern deaths protracted for the patient, uncertain for the medical team, and heart-wrenching for grieving families. Dying may now include a health-care proxy, a living will, and advance directives to accommodate the patient's wishes for their own death, as Warraich eloquently explores the act of dying, he urges the public to talk more about it and pleads for "resuscitating many of the aspects of death that we have lost." Agent: Don Fehr, Trident Media. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life." Publishers Weekly, 5 Dec. 2016, p. 61+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475224896&it=r&asid=66fd24e615928e1923b2e1b4f1d0073f. Accessed 14 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475224896
Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life
Tony Miksanek
113.7 (Dec. 1, 2016): p21.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
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Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life.
By Haider Warraich.
Feb. 2017. 336p. St. Martin's, $26.99 (9781250104588); ebook (9781250104595). 616.02.
So often now, the price for prolonging life is dying poorly--tethered to technology in antiseptic rooms, largely lonely, isolated, and feeble. Warraich, a physician in training, believes that modern death has become too medicalized, even "sterilized." Dying in your own bed is an increasingly uncommon occurrence. Only about 20 percent of Americans expire at home. Meanwhile, dying in hospitals and nursing homes escalates. Warraichs discussion of death incorporates expected elements--CPR, DNR (do not resuscitate), flat EEGs, Karen Quinlan, advance directives, euthanasia, organ donation, the toll on family and caregivers, the right to die--as well as some surprising and creepy components--zombie cells, the Lazarus phenomenon (autoresuscitation), and tumor necrosis factor alpha (a sort of molecular Grim Reaper). A chapter on the role of religion and spirituality in the end-of-life experience is excellent. Warraich endorses religions ability to help temper the terror of impending death. Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross observed that "dying nowadays is more gruesome in many ways, namely, more lonely, mechanical and dehumanized." She expressed that opinion in 1969. The situation hasn't gotten any better. Warraichs thoughtful book may help.--Tony Miksanek
Miksanek, Tony
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Miksanek, Tony. "Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life." Booklist, 1 Dec. 2016, p. 21+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA474717461&it=r&asid=6bfdacffae83037a38c1b553651167e3. Accessed 14 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A474717461
Book review: Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life, by Haider Warraich
Noel Conway, who suffers from Motor Neurone Disease, is mounting a right to die legal challenge to enable him to get medical help to end his life, something Warraich advocates in his book. Picture: Stefan Rousseau
Noel Conway, who suffers from Motor Neurone Disease, is mounting a right to die legal challenge to enable him to get medical help to end his life, something Warraich advocates in his book. Picture: Stefan Rousseau
Claire Black
Published: 10:00 Wednesday 02 August 2017
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Have we become so obsessed with staying alive that we have forgotten how to have a good death, wonders Claire Black
The very nature of death, the mystery that surrounds it, breeds uncertainty,” Haider Warraich writes. “Uncertainty breeds fear, and contrary to general perception, never has death been as feared as it is today. The more medicalised death gets, the longer people are debilitated before the end, the more cloistered those who die become, the more terrifying death gets.”
As bedside manners go, Warraich opts for straight-talking. He graduated from medical school in Pakistan in 2009, and has lived and worked in the US since 2010. Currently a fellow in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, Modern Death is his first book. A wide-ranging examination of a still culturally difficult subject, Warraich’s contention is that we need to get to grips with not only how to speak about death, but also with understanding what dying is, in order that we might question developments in end of life medicine as well as know something of what we want for our own deaths.
There is much to admire in Warraich’s book – its scale and ambition, the assiduous research evident throughout. He draws upon his personal experience as a clinician as well as medical history (details include Alexis Carrell, a French doctor who pioneered the stitching together of blood vessels and was aided in his practice by the teaching of Madame Leroudier, one of Lyon’s finest embroiderers), theology and ethics to examine not only how we die but also how medical and social developments are impacting on death, finding much of it troubling.
Many of us want to die at home but most of us don’t. It is estimated that by 2030 only one in ten people in the UK will die in their own home. A UK survey from 2012 found that while a third of people think about dying on a weekly basis, two-thirds were not comfortable talking about death. The interventions available to keep us alive are growing more complex and powerful and yet we – patients and doctors – struggle to speak openly enough to differentiate between needs and wants, impacts and outcomes. “In innumerable ways, medicine has made life better, and certainly longer,” Warraich writes. “But death itself is more harrowing and prolonged today than it has ever been before.”
Warraich’s thesis isn’t new. In fact, he quotes the American psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who pioneered the hospice movement in the US. “I think there are many reasons for this flight away from facing death calmly,” Kubler-Ross said in 1969. “One of the most important facts is that dying nowadays is more gruesome in many ways, namely, more lonely, mechanical and dehumanised; at times it is even difficult to determine technically when the time of death has occurred.”
Warraich’s aim is to push the debate onwards. He begins at the cellular level. The level of detail may seem almost absurdly microscopic, but Warraich seeks to extract a larger lesson. In simple terms, our cells are in a constant process of living and dying. Our health and wellbeing is dependent upon this process, “the ecology and mechanisms of death among cells denote how truly linked life is to death. In fact, when a cell ‘forgets’ how to die, it ends up becoming something that threatens to bring the entire organism down. Those are cells that cause cancer.” The message is clear: cells die to promote the good of the organism. The warning is stark: “the only thing worse than a cell that forgets how to live is one that refuses to die.”
Warraich considers the thorniest of ethical issues – resuscitation, vegetative states, assisted dying. The human stories he shares are filled with the kinds of everyday tragedy that makes many of us marvel at what doctors do. He poses the most difficult of questions: who has the right to end a life? How do the rights of the individual patient intersect with the medical establishment and society beyond that? What I was struck by, particularly when reading the harrowing descriptions of resuscitation efforts, was how little we see and know of the reality of these processes. As with childbirth, cultural representations tend to be grossly oversimplified and sanitised.
Warraich’s foray into this most contested of territories couldn’t be more timely as demonstrated by the cases of 11-month-old Charlie Gard and that of Noel Conway, the 67-year-old with Motor Neurone Disease whose legal challenge to the UK’s ban on assisted dying has in recent weeks reached the High Court.
There are no easy answers here, but Warraich is refreshingly honest. He advocates legally binding living wills (known as Advance Decisions in the UK) and the rights of terminally ill patients to “demand and acquire the means to end their suffering with the aid of a physician”.
The truism that Warraich seeks to challenge is that there’s nothing worse than death. In fact, from his position on the frontline of medical care, there are many things. This is useful information, vital one might say, and unsurprisingly not always easy to digest.
Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life is published by Duckworth Overlook, £20
Claire Black is a Gestalt therapist, based in Edinburgh
Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life by Haider Warraich
Posted on January 18, 2017 by pagesofjulia
This interdisciplinary study of death and how we can improve–not avoid–it is highly readable and timely.
modern-death
In Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life, Haider Warraich explores how human death has evolved over the course of history and offers recommendations for its future. A medical doctor, Warraich supplements his research with anecdotes from his personal experience, and draws on literature, theology, statistics and legal theory as well as the hard sciences. The resulting expert opinion is heartfelt, convincing and well informed.
Warraich begins with the mechanics of how cells die and the opportunities for analogy they offer: cells choose to die to promote the good of the organism; not dying on time is as bad as dying too soon. He recounts the medical advances that have increased human life spans astronomically in the last two centuries. Chiefly, people now die far less frequently from infection and simple injuries, instead living long enough to die of cancer and heart disease. Because of both medical and cultural shifts, more people die in hospitals or nursing homes than at home.
This is the story of how medicine learned to save and expand lives–especially through procedures like cardiopulmonary resuscitation–and then how medicine learned not to resuscitate. Warraich shows what modern death looks like, how it works, its achievements and shortcomings–and then investigates what a good death could look like, and how we can do better. Science has lengthened lives so successfully, delayed death so thoroughly, that our new problem often is not staying alive, but letting go.
In what comes to feel like the real heart of Modern Death, Warraich then studies the nuances of euthanasia, assisted suicides and the withdrawal of life support systems, and their legal histories in the United States and worldwide. He finds that these three categories of death are far less distinct than generally believed. Finally, he advocates strongly for patients’ control over their own ends of life and exhorts his readers–patients and physicians alike–to discuss death openly.
These conclusions form the book’s central purpose. Along the way, Warraich explores different cultures’ and religions’ approaches to death. He also discusses the philosophical and legal difficulties in defining death and life. Warraich’s chief goal is a better end-of-life experience for everyone.
If Modern Death occasionally uses a few more words than necessary, the inclusion of Warraich’s anecdotal experiences enliven what could have been a dry academic text. For readers interested in its thesis–that death is an important part of life, and medicine and society could do a better job of delivering this experience–it is a sincere and thorough examination of an often overlooked subject. Well served by Warraich’s professional expertise and earnest emphasis, this is an indispensable entry into the conversation about death.
This review originally ran in the January 6, 2017 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade.