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Synopsis not yet available
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I ask a young 200 - kilo patient what he snacks on. Nothing, he says. I look him in the eye. Nothing? He nods. I ask him about his chronic skin infections, his diabetes. He tears up: I eat hot chips and fried dim sims and drink three bottles of Coke every...
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In this moving and controversial Quarterly Essay, doctor and writer Karen Hitchcock investigates the treatment of the elderly and dying through some unforgettable cases. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions, frailty and dementia, over-treatment and... escalating costs. Ours is a society in which ageism, often disguised, threatens to turn the elderly into a 'burden' - difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. While we rightly seek to curb treatment when it is futile, harmful or against a patient's wishes, this can sometimes lead to limits on care that suit the system rather than the person. Doctors may declare a situation hopeless when it may not be so. We must plan for a future when more of us will be old, Hitchcock argues, with the aim of making that time better, not shorter. And we must change our institutions and society to meet the needs of an ageing population. Dear Life is a landmark essay by one of Australia's most powerful writers. 'The elderly, the frail are our society. They are our parents and grandparents, our carers and neighbours, and they are every one of us in the not-too-distant future . . . They are not a growing cost to be managed or a burden to be shifted or a horror to be hidden away, but people whose needs require us to change . . .' Karen Hitchcock, Dear Life
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'I ask a young 200-kilo patient what he snacks on. 'Nothing,' he says. I look him in the eye. Nothing? He nods. I ask him about his chronic skin infections, his diabetes. He tears up: 'I eat hot chips and fried dim sims and drink three bottles of Coke every afternoon. The truth i...s I'm addicted to eating. I'm addicted.' He punches his thigh.' In Fat City, Karen Hitchcock unpicks the idea of obesity as a disease. In a riveting blend of story and analysis, she explores chemistry, psychology and the impulse to excess to explain the West's growing obesity epidemic.
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What happens when a doctor kills a patient? Are GPs overprescribing antidepressants? Does 'female Viagra' work? What role can psychedelics and cannabis play in treating pain? What is sickness, and how much of it is in our heads? In The Medicine, Dr Karen Hitchcock takes us to the... frontlines of everyday treatment, turning her acute gaze to everything from the flu season to dementia, plastic surgery to the humble sick day. In an overcrowded, underfunded medical system, she explores how more of us can be healthier, and how listening carefully to a patient's experience can be as important as prescribing a pill. These dazzling essays show Hitchcock to be one of the most fearless and illuminating medical thinkers of our time - reasonable, insightful and deeply humane.
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In this short, powerful book, Karen Hitchcock shines a light on ageism in our society. Through some unforgettable case studies, she shows what care for the elderly and dying is really like - both the good and the...
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In this short, powerful book, Karen Hitchcock shines a light on ageism in our society. Through some unforgettable case studies, she shows what care for the elderly and dying is really like - both the good and the bad. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life dec...isions and over-treatment, frailty and dementia. Dear Life is a moving and controversial argument against the creeping tendency to see the elderly as a ''burden''-difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. While we rightly seek to curb treatment when it is futile, harmful or against a patient's wishes, this can sometimes lead to limits on care that suit the system rather than the person. Doctors may declare a situation hopeless when it may not be so. We must plan for a future when more of us will be old, Hitchcock argues, with the aim of making that time better, not shorter. And we must change our institutions and society to meet the needs of an ageing population. Dear Life is a landmark book by one of Australia's most powerful writers. ''The elderly, the frail are our society. They are our parents and grandparents, our carers and neighbours, and they are every one of us in the not-too-distant future . . . They are not a growing cost to be managed or a burden to be shifted or a horror to be hidden away, but people whose needs require us to change'' - Karen Hitchcock, Dear Life
Read more
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In this moving and controversial Quarterly Essay, doctor and writer Karen Hitchcock investigates the treatment of the elderly and dying through some unforgettable cases. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end - of - life decisions, frailty and dementia, over - treatme...nt and escalating costs. Ours is a society in which ageism, often d...
Read more
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What happens when a doctor kills a patient? Are GPs overprescribing antidepressants? Does 'female Viagra' work? What role can psychedelics and cannabis play in treating pain? What is sickness, and how much of it is in our heads? In The Medicine, Dr Karen Hitchcock takes us to the... frontlines of everyday treatment, turning her acute gaze to everything from the flu season to dementia, plastic surgery to the humble sick day. In an overcrowded, underfunded medical system, she explores how more of us can be healthier, and how listening carefully to a patient's experience can be as important as prescribing a pill. These dazzling essays show Hitchcock to be one of the most fearless and illuminating medical thinkers of our time - reasonable, insightful and deeply humane.
Read more
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What happens when a doctor kills a patient? Are GPs overprescribing antidepressants? Does 'female Viagra' work? What role can psychedelics and cannabis play in treating pain? What is sickness, and how much of it is in our heads? In The Medicine, Dr Karen Hitchcock takes us to the... frontlines of everyday treatment, turning her acute gaze to every...
Read more
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