33 Meditations on Death: Notes from the Wrong End of Medicine

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33 Meditations on Death: Notes from the Wrong End of Medicine

33 Meditations on Death: Notes from the Wrong End of Medicine

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Too much medicine and too little helping people and their families gain a realistic vision of old age and dying. Old age and the end of life are things that we need to prepare for and discuss with our family members.

A mixture of reminiscences drawn from the author's family life and a long medical career and reflections on how to deal with death and dying. David Jarrett's 33 Meditations, the fruit of forty years of professional experience with people at the end of their lives, is not only timely and important, but hugely enjoyable. And I loathe fish, can't eat lamb and must steer clear of certain other foods that make my skin itch. This book reinforces all the things that we suspect about ageing which none of us really wants to own.Jarrett has cared for elderly patients for many years and after reading this book, one feels assured of his empathy and compassion towards all his patients. It is striking how the candour of our public discourse fails when we get on to the subject of death, a significant and puzzling failure for it is the fate we all share. I would highly recommend reading it and then discussing its contents with family members and your GP. Like many lapsed Catholics the author is sometimes guilty of imagining that a Roman Catholic understanding of how to respond to death and what religion means is the only valid (but wrong) way of being religious.

I am interested in how modern medicine seems to have lost its way especially with excessive investigation and treatment of the very frail and elderly close to the end of their natural lives. I have a plan in the end and won't be left suffering more needlessly because of lacking a NDR directive. This book was recommended and whilst I did find it interesting in parts, generally it's a tad sad and depressing ( as it would be given the subject matter) For me, the book lacked any spiritual depth. This wonderfully enlightening book by a doctor who cares for the dying is a plea for all of us to consider now what a good death should look like and what we’d want for ourselves. I am still working, albeit part time, as a consultant geriatrician and stroke physician on the south coast of England.

This book will be helpful to anyone with ageing parents or people like myself who are old but not yet elderly. We are all going to die, at some stage, and decisions we make will inform our declining years - from 25 years on. How else will my caregivers (when I'm old and gaga) know I want a glass of Aussie Chardonnay at 7pm every evening. I’ve recommended this book to so many and my parents have read this as a result (and also loved it)! It is immensely readable and is both funny and poignant even though it covers very difficult and often avoided subjects; namely the fact that we all die, that old age can be grim and that death is not always the worst outcome.

This is reflected less in his observations - which are more evenhanded - than in his sweeping asides and unfortunately these do intrude given the subject matter of what is otherwise a thoughtful and interesting book about dying.

Dr David Jarrett draws on family stories and case histories from his thirty years of treating the old, demented and frail to try to find his own understanding of the end. I read this book over the course of one day and now I am passing it on to friends to read and discuss.

It presents a cogent argument for an alternative approach to the end of life from the one that has seen us sacrifice quality of years for quantity. I work in the NHS myself in psychology and really liked the author’s musings on how much society might over-medicalise or over-treat. David Jarrett has been a doctor for forty years, thirty of which as an NHS consultant in geriatric and stroke medicine. We all need to have conversation about what we want in the end and keep the conversation going with your family. David Jarrett’s 33 Meditations, the fruit of forty years of professional experience with people at the end of their lives, is not only timely and important, but hugely enjoyable.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. I am naturally a little biased but this is a lovely book which highlights the simultaneous futility and the beauty of life. Jarrett explains how we can ensure that our last years are comfortable and not a burden to us, the health care system and, most importantly, our loved ones. If a doctor can perform an abortion or transgender operation I don’t understand why a patient can’t request an end of life assist. No one wants to live long enough to sit incapacitated in a wheelchair in the corridor of a hospital or nursing home.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
  • Sold by: Fruugo

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