Time to Go: Three Plays on Death and Dying With Commentary on End-Of-Life Issues

This unusual and timely book presents three prize-winning, one-act plays on the hard choices that patients, their families, and their physicians often face at the end of life. Each play is followed by a critical commentary, with suggestions for staging and follow-up discussions. The introduction provides a lucid and succinct explanation of the human, ethical, and legal contexts for the rights of patients in the United States to make important decisions about their health care. Medical technology has radically changed the way we die; it is now possible to sustain life long after consciousness and intelligence are gone. Although Congress recently passed a law intended to encourage people to create an "advance directive" - a document instructing health care providers what to do in situations where an individual is unable to communicate his or her wishes - surveys show that few people have done so. Time to Go is intended to increase awareness and knowledge about advance directives, and beyond that, to facilitate discussion about the many complicated issues surrounding death and dying today. Besides its interest for the general reader, it should prove useful in the educational and outreach programs of medical and nursing schools, colleges and universities, and civic and religious groups.

Anne Hunsaker Hawkins is Associate Professor of Humanities at the College of Medicine at Pennsylvania State University. James O. Ballard is Professor of Medicine and holds the Kienle Chair for Humane Medicine at the College of Medicine at Pennsylvania State University.