Traveling Ethics Book Club

This fall the Clinical Ethics Service and Resident Ethics Workgroup launches book club. This long requested series will offer a featured selection to examine the ethical issues encountered in patient care, particularly in large health care systems. Each month, the featured book will be available for loan on the host units. At the end of the month, we will offer a discussion – book club meeting – for interested readers.

SEPT 2019 – Hosted by PICU

Discussion and Refreshments

Sept XX 5:30-6:30 Sanofi Conference Room

In the tradition of the best writing on medicine, physician and reporter Sheri Fink reconstructs five days at Memorial Medical Center and draws the listener into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and to maintain life amidst chaos.

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 patients with drugs to hasten their deaths.

Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the listener into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing.

In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are in America for the impact of large-scale disasters – and how we can do better. A remarkable book, engrossing from start to finish, Five Days at Memorial radically transforms your understanding of human nature in crisis.

Order the book here

This selection was suggested
by: Shannon Solt, Pediatric Critical Care
We thank UNC Children’s Office of External Affairs for their generous support of this initiative.