Dancing with Broken Bones: Poverty, Race, and Spirit-filled Dying in the Inner City

by David Wendell Moller

Overview

Dancing with Broken Bones gives voice and face to a vulnerable and disempowered population whose stories often remain untold: the urban dying poor. Drawing on complex issues surrounding poverty, class, and race, Moller illuminates the unique sufferings that often remain unknown and hidden within a culture of broad invisibility. He demonstrates how a complex array of factors, such as mistrust of physicians, regrettable indignities in care, and inadequate communication among providers, patients, and families, shape the experience of the dying poor in the inner city. This book challenges readers to look at reality in a different way. Demystifying stereotypes that surround poverty, Moller illuminates how faith, remarkable optimism, and an unassailable spirit provide strength and courage to the dying poor. Dancing with Broken Bones serves as a rallying call for compassionate individuals everywhere to understand and respond to the needs of the especially vulnerable, yet inspiring, people who comprise the world of the inner city dying poor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199760138
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/13/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

David Wendell Moller is Chair of the Department of Bioethics at Kansas City University if Medicine and Biosciences. Previously, he served as Director of Human Values in Medicine at Saint Luke's Hospital of Kansas City, and he has held academic positions at the University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Medicine, Indiana University, and Fort Hays State University. Moller has lectured extensively on the human encounter with mortality, and has authored several books that explore the intersection of cutlure, society, and the experience of dying.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Revisiting Dancing with Broken Bones

Chapter 1. Crossing the Tracks

Chapter 2. Dying Poor: An Invisible World

Chapter 3. Dying the Public Hospital System: Institutional Arrangements and Provider Perspectives

Chapter 4. Courage Through Suffering: Snapshots of the Dying Poor

Chapter 5. Triumph and Faith Through Harsh Reality and Personal Tragedy: Lucille Angel

Chapter 6. Life on the Brink: Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler

Chapter 7. A Conclusion: Conscious Listening, Mindful Presence-A Lesson Learned

Epilogue. An Urban Thoreau

Editorial Reviews

"Read this book. It will remind you why you became a physician."
The Lancet

"Moller has produced a profound literary work."
— Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life & Palliative Care

"...stories of courage, faith, suffering, and neglect are interwoven in a remarkable book for anyone with an interest in end-of-life care."
— Journal of Palliative Medicine

"Moller takes us through doors that we otherwise would not cross. He introduces us to people who are authentically themselves, fully alive, despite dismal circumstances. We hear their anger as well as their humor, see their suffering as well as their joy. They teach us the importance of feeling connected to others and the critical value of forgiveness, gratitude, and love at the end of life. Suffering misfortune that few of us can imagine, the people whose stories Moller tells reveal the inherent dignity and the indomitable nature of the human spirit." — Ira Byock, MD, author of Dying Well, and co-founder of Life's End Institute: Missoula Demonstration Project

"For most of us, the lives and deaths of the urban homeless remain invisible and largely unfathomable. Dr. Moller and his colleagues have had the courage to enter this world, and to even take medical students with them! In Dancing with Broken Bones, we too are invited along to witness its tragedies and its humanity. In these remarkable real-life narratives, we can contemplate what a dignified death might look like in the face of extreme poverty and homelessness. In doing so, we are invited to consider what is important in our own privileged lives and deaths, and how we should be caring for those who are far less fortunate." —Timothy E. Quill, MD, Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Medical Humanities, Palliative Care Program and Program for Biopsychosocial Studies, University of Rochester School of Medicine

"Dr. Moller has shed light on the forgotten world of illness and dying in the urban poor. Through eloquence, grace, and wit, he makes us face what to many is too painful to contemplate - death that is painful, lonely, and unwanted. This book will serve as a landmark in the death and dying literature, forcing health professionals and society at large to work harder toward an equitable system of healthcare for the living and the dying." — David E. Weissman, MD, Palliative Care Center, Medical College of Wisconsin

"This book moved me to tears, to anger, to repeated shocks of recognition, as well as to joy and to pride at being part of a human race whose members are capable of such remarkable love and care for one another." — Diane E. Meier, MD, Director, Center to Advance Palliative Care, and Professor, Departments of Geriatrics and Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

"The grace and dignity of humanity is pervasive and memorable in these stories of living with poverty and fatal illness; but I hope that we are also profoundly moved to relieve the tragic circumstances that poverty and inept healthcare arrangements inflicted upon the people whose stories David Moller tells." — Joanne Lynn, MD, The Washington Home Center for Palliative Care Studies, RAND Health, and Americans for Better Care of the Dying

From the Publisher