Palliative Care Book of the Month and other Book Reviews
Palliative Care Book of the Month
BE THE NOODLE
50 Ways to be a Compassionate, Courageous, Crazy-good Caregiver
Lois Kelly
World Audience Inc., 2010
123 pp
ISBN 978-1-935444-69-5
RRP $US18.00
Bette Kelly was a strong swimmer and regarded the use of swimming noodles (the strap-on Styrofoam buoyancy devices) as ‘ridiculous’. But when she was diagnosed with lung cancer metastatic to her brain, she realised that she would need a lot of help and support in her endeavour to stay at home and avoid being hospitalised. The task of being her noodle fell to her daughter, Lois, a marketing consultant who admits she had no training whatsoever for a job she never wanted. This wonderful book is a collection of 50 short anecdotes from the time she was looking after her mother, each ending with a caregiver lesson. Written from both the heart and the head, I think this book would provide great support and comfort to anyone who found themselves being the caregiver to a relative or friend who is dying. My favourites? I think ‘Tea but no sympathy’, is about the ridiculous things friends and relatives say to someone who is dying, and ‘Five things that really piss-off caregivers’, which speaks for itself.
Roger Woodruff (Australia), an IAHPC Board Member
(May 2010)
Book reviews
OPIOIDS IN CANCER PAIN. 2nd Ed
Mellar Davis, Paul Glare, Colomba Quigley and Janet Hardy (Eds)
Oxford University Press, 2009
487 pp
ISBN 978-0-19-923664-0
RRP £55.00, $US115.00
This up-dated and much-expanded second edition of Opioids in Cancer Pain includes new chapters on buprenorphine, opioid use in organ failure, the differing strategies for the use of opioids in the setting of acute and chronic pain, the use of opioids in paediatrics and in developing countries and, most pleasing, the use of opioids in the imminently dying patient. As with the first edition, the information is well set out with the good use of headings and is well-referenced. I also note that the abuse of abbreviations noted in this column four years ago has been heeded. As with the first edition, the editors are to be congratulated for putting together what remains the premier reference on opioids in cancer pain.
**
SPIRITUAL DIVERSITY IN SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE 2nd Ed
The Heart of Helping
Edward R. Canda and Leola Dyrud Furman
Oxford University Press, 2010
449 pp
ISBN 978-0-19-537279-3
RRP $US45.00 £30.00
I don’t believe I came across the first edition of this book, issued ten years ago, but know that there have been major advances in the incorporation of spirituality into modern-day social work practice and palliative medicine generally. This book is encyclopaedic in its coverage. The first section is about central values and concepts for spiritually sensitive social work, with chapters on guiding principles, ethics and the meaning of spirituality. The second section explores spiritual diversity, both religious and non-religious, in relation to social work practice. The last section is about spiritually sensitive social work in action with chapters about creating a spiritually sensitive context for practice, understanding and assessing spiritual development, ethical guidelines for spiritually sensitive and culturally appropriate practice, and spiritually oriented transformational practice. I found the book very dense to read and began to tire of the lists of how to get around any problem, be they related to religious or non-religious beliefs, racial or cultural differences, personal problems and psychopathology, difficulties with organizations, etc., etc. I think this book would be a valuable resource for graduate-level medical social workers.
**
WHEN KIDS ARE GRIEVING
Addressing grief and loss in school
Donna M. Burns
Corwin, 2010
108 pp
ISBN 978-1-4129-7490-5 RRP $US25.95
Review copy supplied by Footprint Books www.footprint.com.au
This book is primarily written for those who work in the education system, but it provides a clear, user-friendly overview of grief and loss in children and what is needed to best manage it. For those of us who work in palliative care, this book will be appreciated by those with an interest in grief and counselling and could perhaps be a useful resource for those of us who only occasionally stumble on the problems of grieving children.
**
BETTER CANCER CARE
A Systemic Approach To Practice
Liz Forbatt, Gill Hubbard and Nora Kearney
Dunedin Academic Press, 2009
166 pp
ISBN 978-1-906716-09-7
RRP $US39.95, £23.75
This book reports the results of a large study of cancer care by a research psychologist (LF), a sociologist (GH) and an experienced cancer nurse (NK) who work at the Cancer Care Research Centre at the University of Stirling in Scotland. They describe the experience of cancer and cancer care in the context of family relationships, professional relationships, relationships with other s who have an experience of cancer, relationships at work, relationships with self, as well as the physical aspects and social contexts of cancer care. They say we need to rethink what we are doing and adopt a systemic approach in which health professionals need to have a relational and context-aware approach to patients who are experiencing cancer, taking into account the wider context of their lives. As one who was brought up on patient-centred care in oncology, which automatically included family, occupational and psychosocial issues, I was left asking what was new. They conclude, ‘a systemic approach to enhancing cancer care is based on an understanding of the relational and contextual influences that impact upon the meaning of the disease, and the recursive loop connecting disease, relationships and contexts.’ This book should be read by anybody involved in cancer care planning, frequent use of quotations from interviews adds a human face and underlines the need for more holistic care.
**
Roger Woodruff, MD (Australia) Dr. Woodruff is a member of the Board of IAHPC
(May 2010) For more information go to: http://www.hospicecare.com/Bio/r_woodruff.htm
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Dr Roger Woodruff
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Heidelberg, Victoria 3084
AUSTRALIA
Note: Review copies become property of IAHPC and are not returned to the author. Only palliative care related books which are previously approved will be reviewed. Due to the large number of requests, we can't provide exact dates of when books will be reviewed.
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