Who Says You're Dead? Medical & Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious & Concerned
Ratings1
Average rating4
“An original, compelling, and provocative exploration of ethical issues in our society, with thoughtful and balanced commentary. I have not seen anything like it.” —Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams Drawing upon the author’s two decades teaching medical ethics, as well as his work as a practicing psychiatrist, this profound and addictive little book offers up challenging ethical dilemmas and asks readers, What would you do? A daughter gets tested to see if she’s a match to donate a kidney to her father. The test reveals that she is not the man’s biological daughter. Should the doctor tell the father? Or the daughter? A deaf couple prefers a deaf baby. Should they be allowed to use medical technology to ensure they have a child who can’t hear? Who should get custody of an embryo created through IVF when a couple divorces? Or, when you or a loved one is on life support, Who says you’re dead? In short, engaging scenarios, Dr. Appel takes on hot-button issues that many of us will confront: genetic screening, sexuality, privacy, doctor-patient confidentiality. He unpacks each hypothetical with a brief reflection drawing from science, philosophy, and history, explaining how others have approached these controversies in real-world cases. Who Says You’re Dead? is designed to defy easy answers and to stimulate thought and even debate among professionals and armchair ethicists alike.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
There's, apparently, lots of medical cases that exist in the grey area of the medical industry. Fringe things, like a woman who adamantly wants fiberglass horns like a dinosaur to be her true self, or a woman who wants her surgeon to amputate her foot because it doesn't feel like her foot, that make you scratch your head a little and puzzle the scenarios out with the author. I thought this book did a lot right, actually. The book is broken down by dilemma; the author will present a situation (with names and situation details altered so as not to reveal anyone's identities) and then provide several pages worth of discussion related to that case. The discussion tries to cover all angles, which I thought was nice. There's very few concrete resolutions to any of these, however, which I guess makes sense because why would it be an ethical dilemma if there were easy answers?
I think my only hangup with the book is that some of the cases presented start feeling same-y after a while. Person X wants to die because their quality of life was impacted/is in a coma and can't provide their true wishes. Person Y wants the opposite of whatever Person X wants, for Z good reason. Who's right? In all cases, no matter the details, it ends up being “it's complicated”.
If you're looking for a book to puzzle over with a family member or friend, this is one for you. I read a few aloud to my husband for us to think about before reading the discussions about them, and there were a few times where we disagreed for logical reasons. It's a thought provoking book about edge cases you might not otherwise think about.
