Negotiating Death in Contemporary Health and Social Care

Download or read book Negotiating Death in Contemporary Health and Social Care written by Margaret Holloway and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2007-10-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once regarded as taboo, it is now claimed that we live in a death-obsessed society. The face of death in the twenty-first century, brought about by cultural and demographic change and advances in medical technology, presents health and social care practitioners with new challenges and dilemmas. By focusing on predominant patterns of dying, global images of death, shifting boundaries between the public and the private, and cultural pluralism, the author looks at the way death is handled in contemporary society and the sensitive ethical and practical dilemmas facing nurses, social workers, doctors and chaplains. This book brings together perspectives from social science, health care and pastoral theology to assist the reader in understanding and negotiating this 'new death'. Students interested in death studies from a sociological and cultural viewpoint, as well as health and social care students and practitioners, will benefit from this appraisal and application of the established knowledge base to contemporary practices and ethical debates.