HW 29 - Reading and noting basic materials

For this assignment, you will put together a 1-2 page map of crucial information about 3-5 aspects of dominant practices of illness & dying in the U.S.

I imagine 3-5 "domains" made of 1-2 paragraphs each of the condensed situation, with footnoted or in-text citations. The domains that came to mind for me include;

• Facing Terminal Illness – Tuesdays, My Brother, Beth
• Isolation – hospitalization, old folks’ homes, Stigma
• Paying for medical care – historically and now – Sicko, Sick, Landmark, Beth,
• The process of dying – Near-Death, Beth, A Time For Dying
• Being sick – Family interviews, own experience.
  
  

A model of what sort of map you could write about one of the domains:

Process of Dying:

The process of dying includes many variables. Where a person dies, his/her beliefs, support network, and the medical interventions attempted can all significantly impact the experience (but not the outcome). Our guest speaker made a home death for her husband which was an intimate, if grueling, final week together. The film Near-Death documented the backs-and-forths in the dying process in the hospital which included confusion over whether to attempt medical interventions or simply to increase patient comfort through the process. In A Time For Dying a medical anthropologist distinguishes between the historical hospital process, with a “death watch” (93), and the current situation with futile but reimbursable interventions being the norm (97), and the growing desire for a less mechanized death (27).

Note: All of the below excerpts have been password-protected to ensure that the only downloading will be for the educational purposes identified as "Fair Use".
historical excerpts from Sick
journalistic explanation of new health care legislation from Landmark
sociological/psychological analysis of Stigma
anthropological analysis of dying in hospitals
NYT op-ed in favor of less medical interventions in dying

Will be due 9pm, Saturday, January 8.