The first resource on end-of-life care for healthcare practitioners who work with the terminally ill and their families, Living with Dying begins with the narratives of five healthcare professionals, who, when faced with overwhelming personal losses altered their clinical practices and philosophies. The book provides ways to ensure a respectful death for individuals, families, groups, and communities and is organized around theoretical issues in loss, grief, and bereavement and around clinical practice with individuals, families, and groups.

Living with Dying addresses practice with people who have specific illnesses such as AIDS, bone marrow disease, and cancer and pays special attention to patients who have been stigmatized by culture, ability, sexual orientation, age, race, or homelessness. The book includes content on trauma and developmental issues for children, adults, and the aging who are dying, and it addresses legal, ethical, spiritual, cultural, and social class issues as core factors in the assessment of and work with the dying. It explores interdisciplinary teamwork, supervision, and the organizational and financing contexts in which dying occurs.

Current research in end-of-life care, ways to provide leadership in the field, and a call for compassion, insight, and respect for the dying makes this an indispensable resource for social workers, healthcare educators, administrators, consultants, advocates, and practitioners who work with the dying and their families.

The first resource on end-of-life care for healthcare practitioners who work with the terminally ill and their families, Living with Dying begins with the narratives of five healthcare professionals, who, when faced with overwhelming personal losses altered their clinical practices and philosophies. The book provides ways to ensure a respectful death for individuals, families, groups, and communities and is organized around theoretical issues in loss, grief, and bereavement and around clinical practice with individuals, families, and groups.

Living with Dying addresses practice with people who have specific illnesses such as AIDS, bone marrow disease, and cancer and pays special attention to patients who have been stigmatized by culture, ability, sexual orientation, age, race, or homelessness. The book includes content on trauma and developmental issues for children, adults, and the aging who are dying, and it addresses legal, ethical, spiritual, cultural, and social class issues as core factors in the assessment of and work with the dying. It explores interdisciplinary teamwork, supervision, and the organizational and financing contexts in which dying occurs.

Current research in end-of-life care, ways to provide leadership in the field, and a call for compassion, insight, and respect for the dying makes this an indispensable resource for social workers, healthcare educators, administrators, consultants, advocates, and practitioners who work with the dying and their families.

Contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Foreword, by Thomas R. Egnew
Introduction
Part I Narratives in End-of-Life Care
1. Fragments of Love: Explorations in the Ethnography of Suffering and Professional Caregiving, by David Browning
2. The Symptom Is Stillness: Living with and Dying from ALS, by Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey
3. The Loss of a Child to Cancer: From Case to Caseworker, by Roberta Hoffman
4. September 11: Reflections on Living with Dying in Disaster Relief, by es Gallo-Silver and Penny Damaskos
Part II Theoretical Aspects of Death and Dying
Introduction: Theory
5. What Is a Respectful Death? by Stu Farber, Thomas Egnew, and Annalu Farber
6. Dying and Bereavement in Historical Perspective, by Phyllis R. Silverman
7. The History of Social Work in Hospice, by Mary Raymer and Dona Reese
8. The Interdisciplinary Team: An Oxymoron? by Inge B. Corless and Patrice K. Nicholas
9. Ethical issues in End-of-Life Care: Social Work and Facilitation and Proactive Intervention, by Patricia O'Donnell
10. Spirituality and End-of-Life Care Practice for Social Workers, by Carolyn Jacobs
11. Gender and Death: Parallel and Intersecting Pathways, by Illene C. Noppe
12. Bereavement: A Time of Transition and Changing Relationships, by Phyllis R. Silverman
13. Psychodynamic Theories in Grief and Bereavement, by Joan Berzoff
Part III Clinical Practice Issues in End-of-Life Care
Introduction: Clinical Practice
14. The Trajectory of Illness, by Allen Levine and Wendy Karger
15. Clinical Social Work Practice at the End of Life, by Felice Zilberfein and Elizabeth Hurwitz
16. The End of Life at the Beginning of Life: Working with Dying Children and Their Families, by Nancy Cincotta
17. Working with Dying and Bereaved Older People, by Sue Thompson and Neil Thompson
18. Assessing Mental Health Risk in End-of-Life Care, by Katherine Walsh-Burke
19. Pain and Symptom Management: An Essential Role for Social Work, by Terry Altilio