In the Midst of Life

INTRODUCTION

Fifty years of thought, and four years of writing, have gone into the production of this book. The best wine and cheese, we are told, are slow to mature. Let us hope it is the same for books!

It has been written with a strong sense of vocation. ‘Modern medicine’ was just developing when I started nursing in the 1950s – they were exciting days. I was only eighteen, but could see quite clearly that with every new advance in pharmacology and surgery, the acceptance of death was being transformed into denial.

Only those who have seen death are able to talk about it meaningfully. I was privileged to be of that generation of nurses who were required to sit with the dying, and the insights gained from those experiences inform the whole book.

I left nursing in 1973, and although the earlier stories in the book are now medical history, the moral and ethical issues remain the same. But through the professional journals, friends and relatives, and observation, I have kept in touch with medicine and nursing, as the later stories illustrate. In order to bring this book clinically into the twenty-first century, I have asked three professionals who are currently working to write updates on modern medical practice: David Hackett, consultant cardiologist; Madeline Bass, palliative care nurse and teacher; Louise Massen, ambulance service paramedic and clinician. These papers are to be found in the appendices at the end of the book. Readers who are interested in a serious update on professional papers and government reports and directives can find an extensive reading list, but it must be remembered that these are changing all the time, and almost every month new material is added.

Jennifer Worth,

September 2010