Emerson College Library: Teach-In on Sustainability Spring 2024: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour: Talking Compassionately About Suffering and Life’s End

Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour: Talking Compassionately About Suffering and Life’s End

Tuesday, March 5, 1:00 pm-2:00 pm

Presenters:

Sunita Puri, M.D., Author, Program Director of the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program at the UMass Chan School of Medicine

Description:

Sunita Puri is a palliative care physician and an author. She works at the University of Massachusetts hospital system, where
She is also the author of the NY Times bestseller That Good Night, a book about her experiences in the field of palliative care. She has written a number of magazine and newspaper articles as well, and teaches a course on medical memoir at Harvard Medical School. She lives in Worcester, MA.

Location

The Judee, Little Building Lower Level
80 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116

Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Books and Media @ Emerson

That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour by Sunita Puri
A heart-wrenching and provocative memoir about how the essential parts of one young woman's early life--her mother's work as a surgeon and her spiritual practice--led her to become a doctor and to question the premise that medicine exists to prolong life at all costs.

My Own Life
An op-ed by Dr. Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author, reflecting upon his life and experiences in light of a recent cancer diagnosis.
Being Mortal
A Frontline documentary following surgeon Atul Gawande caring for patients who have been diagnosed with terminal illnesses and helping them live full lives in light of these diagnoses.
Surgeon gave an infant a heart from a baboon
An obituary for Dr. Leonard L. Bailey, the pediatric surgeon who performed the "Baby Fae" surgery, in which he transplanted a baboon's heart into a human newborn.

External Links

As a Doctor, I Know Being Ready to Die Is an Illusion
A New York Times op-ed by Dr. Sunita Puri discussing her experiences with terminally ill patients coming to terms with their deaths.
What is the difference between palliative care and hospice care?
Nonoverlapping Magisteria
An essay by Stephen Jay Gould explaining the concept of nonoverlapping magisteria--that science and religion are two different realms of study that do not overlap.

Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being

The United Nations describes the importance of this goal stating "Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development. Urgent and concerted action is needed to set the world back on a trajectory towards achieving Goal 3."