Podcasts from a professor of medical sociology at Harvard, Nicholas Christakis, are available here . The class, Life & Death in the USA: Medicine in Disease in Social Context, includes three lectures on end-of-life care.
- The Nature of Dying in the U.S.
- The Role of Prognostication in End-of-Life Care
- Selected Ethical Aspects of End-of-Life Care
From the class description:
We will explore the nature of dying in the U.S. and what might be done to improve end-of-life care. We will consider the nature of a good death, how death affects family members, and where death occurs. We will examine how social policy or clinical arrangements affect the experience of dying. We will especially focus on the role of physician decision-making and on ethical aspects of terminal care, including decisions about euthanasia and life support withdrawal. During this set of sessions on the care of the terminally ill, we shall also begin to consider the process by which physicians are socialized to their role as doctors. How does physician training influence health care delivery and patient experience?
