Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

A prominent surgeon argues against modern medical practices that extend life at the expense of quality of life while isolating the dying, outlining suggestions for freer, more fulfilling approaches to death that enable more dignified and comfortable choices.

Barbara Ehrenreich explores how we are killing ourselves to live longer, not better. She describes how we over-prepare and worry way too much about what is inevitable. One by one, Ehrenreich topples the shibboleths that guide our attempts to live a long, healthy life, from the importance of preventive medical screenings to the concepts of wellness and mindfulness, from dietary fads to fitness culture. We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies,...

The author provides a landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina-- and a suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice. After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous...

"The slow violence being inflicted on our environment-through everything from carbon emissions to plastic pollution-also represents an impending public health catastrophe. Yet standard healthcare practices are more concerned with short-term outcomes than long-term sustainability. Every resource used to deliver medical care, from IV tubes to antibiotics to electricity, has a significant environmental impact. This raises an urgent ethical dilemma: in...

"Following the death of her father, journalist and hospice volunteer Ann Neumann sets out to examine what it means to die well in the United States. If a good death exists, what does it look like? This question lies at the heart of Neumann's rigorously researched and intimately told journey along the ultimate borderland of American life: American death. From church basements to hospital wards to prison cells, Neumann charts the social, political,...

"We have lost the ability to deal with death. Most of our friends and beloved relations will die in a busy hospital in the care of strangers, doctors, and nurses they have known at best for a couple of weeks. They may not even know they are dying, victims of the kindly lie that there is still hope. They are unlikely to see even their family doctor in their final hours, robbed of their dignity and fed through a tube after a long series of excessive...

"His mother's last word was his name. His father's was "Wonderful." Together they inspired the title for this true story of love and redemption. Bob Morris was always the entertainer in his family, but not always a perfect son. When he finds his parents approaching the end of their lives, he begins to see his relationship to them in a whole new light and it changes his way of thinking. How does an adult child with flaws and limitations figure out...

Offers families, friends, and caregivers of terminally ill patients advice on understanding their needs.

After a meteor hits the moon and sets off a series of horrific climate changes, seventeen-year-old Alex Morales must take care of his sisters alone in the chaos of New York City.

Teenager Heidi Landseth helps rescue people from a plane crash on her family's property, and the experience changes her life forever.