Critical moments

the long version

"This book explores how the withdrawal of active medical treatment is managed in intensive care units, placing this in the context of detailed patient case studies. It examines, in particular, the notion of 'natural death' in this highly technological health care setting, and explores how doctors and nurses strive to achieve this for dying people and their families. It draws extensively on the experiences of patients' families, doctors and nurses, using interview and observational data. It is a timely account of the practical, ethical and emotional difficulties of end of life care in this complex setting . The book will be of interest to nurses working with dying people in acute hospital environments, to those engaged in the sociology of death and dying, and in the conduct of ethnographic research in this field.consequences thrown up by its use."--BOOK JACKET.