Books & Books and the Sylvester Cancer Center present…

Breakfast with Hope!

Featuring Dr. Jessica Zitter

Discussing

Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of

Life

Tuesday, November 17, 11 AM

REGISTER HERE FOR FREE

Wake up to a VIRTUAL BREAKFAST WITH HOPE, a monthly reading & discussion group hosted by Hope Torrents and sponsored by Sylvester Cancer Center!

This Month’s Book:

BUY THE BOOK HERE

About the Book: 

For readers of Being Mortal and Modern Death, an ICU and Palliative Care specialist offers a framework for a better way to exit life that will change our medical culture at the deepest level

In medical school, no one teaches you how to let a patient die.

Jessica Zitter became a doctor because she wanted to be a hero. She elected to specialize in critical care—to become an ICU physician—and imagined herself swooping in to rescue patients from the brink of death. But then during her first code she found herself cracking the ribs of a patient so old and frail it was unimaginable he would ever come back to life. She began to question her choice.

Extreme Measures charts Zitter’s journey from wanting to be one kind of hero to becoming another—a doctor who prioritizes the patient’s values and preferences in an environment where the default choice is the extreme use of technology. In our current medical culture, the old and the ill are put on what she terms the End-of-Life  Conveyor belt. They are intubated, catheterized, and even shelved away in care facilities to suffer their final days alone, confused, and often in pain. In her work Zitter has learned what patients fear more than death itself: the prospect of dying badly. She builds bridges between patients and caregivers, formulates plans to allay patients’ pain and anxiety, and enlists the support of loved ones so that life can end well, even beautifully.

Filled with rich patient stories that make a compelling medical narrative, Extreme Measures enlarges the national conversation as it thoughtfully and compassionately examines an experience that defines being human.

About the Author: 

Dr. Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH specializes in Critical Care and Palliative Care medicine, and practices at a public hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life. Her work is featured in the Oscar and Emmy-nominated short documentary Extremis, and her forthcoming film, Caregiver: A Love Story.

Who is Hope?

Hope Torrents is the Museum Educator and Director of the Fine Art of Healthcare program at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami where she’s worked since 1999. In 2010 her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Over a six-year period Jordi was in and out of the hospital 45-50 times.

Hope’s own work with The Lowe Art Museum’s Fine Art of Healthcare is one step in preparing future healthcare providers to be better observers and communicators. The goal is for them to have a more holistic view of their patients and families. Hope’s interest in creating a book club on health and well-being was in part propelled by her conviction that, with the right training, those in the medical system can improve – especially in the fields of compassion, visual acuity, de-biasing, and collaboration.

What is Hope’s Book Club?

Hope has been facilitating discussions for the last 20 years. Now, she joins us to kick off a series of monthly discussions about her passion: health and well-being. After years of research and attending workshops at Harvard, Columbia and the University of Florida, Hope aims to tap into the interest that many of us have about our own health and well-being, and share her knowledge with our community.