Includes bibliographical references.

UNIT 1. End-of-life decision making -- Does depression make end-of-life decisions untrustworthy? -- Do advance directives improve care for those unable to make decisions? -- UNIT 2. Caregiver end-of-life decision making -- Do dying persons without advocates get a difference quality of care? -- Compassion fatigue : does burnout occur in all caregivers of dying patients? -- UNIT 3. Treatment requests and decisions : pain and futility -- Does a dying person with severe pain have a right to effective pain management? -- Should pain be alleviated if it hastens death? -- Does too much treatment result in an inhumane dying? -- Are feeding tubes obligatory? -- Does withholding or withdrawing futile treatment kill people? -- UNIT 4. Assisted suicide -- May a dying person hasten her death? -- Can legal suicide really safeguard against abuse? -- Is palliative sedation actually euthanasia in disguise? -- UNIT 5. Determining definitions of death -- Is brain death dead enough? -- UNIT 6. Hospice, policy, and costs of dying -- Is it better to die in hospice than hospitals? -- Should eldercare at the end of life be subsidized? -- UNIT 7. Dying and death as cultural performances -- Is dying improved by belonging to a religious community rather than simply being a spiritual person? -- Is dying made better by culturally competent end-of-life care? -- Do funeral rituals help grief?