Jewish Guide to Practical Medical Decision Making

Check out
this new 368-page
book from Rabbi Jason Weiner: Jewish Guide to Practical
Medical Decision Making.

Due to rapid advances in the medical field, existing books on Jewish medical
ethics are quickly becoming outdated. Jewish
Guide to Practical Medical Decision Making seeks to remedy that by
presenting the most contemporary medical information and rabbinic rulings in an
accessible, user-friendly manner. 

Rabbi Weiner addresses a broad range of medical circumstances such as surrogacy
and egg donation, assisted suicide, and end-of-life decision making. Based on
his extensive training and practical familiarity inside a major hospital, Rabbi
Weiner provides clear and concise guidance to facilitate complex
decision-making for the most common medical dilemmas that arise in contemporary
society.

1. Facilitating Shared Decision-Making 

A. Understanding Terminology: Key Concepts to Facilitate
Collaborative Decision-Making

B. Truth-Telling: When Painful Medical Information Should
and Should Not Be Revealed 

C. Mental Illness: Determining Capacity and Proper Treatment
in Accordance with Jewish Law  

2. How Much Treatment? 

A. Risk and Self-Endangerment: Determining the
Appropriateness of Attempting Various Levels of Dangerous Medical Procedures

B. Making Decisions on Behalf of an Incapacitated Patient

C. Pediatrics: Jewish Law and Determining a Child�s Consent
and Treatment 

D. Palliative Care and Hospice in Jewish Law and Thought

3. Prayer  

A. Is Prayer Ever Futile? On the Efficacy of Prayer for
the Terminally Ill 

B. Viduy: Confessional Prayers Prior to Death

4.  At the End of Life

A. Advance Directives and POLST Forms  

B. End-of-Life Decision-Making: DNR, Comfort Measures,
Nutrition/Hydration, and Defining �Terminal� in accordance with Jewish Law

C. Withholding vs. Withdrawing: Deactivating a
Ventilator and Cessation of Dialysis and Cardiac Defibrillators at the End of
Life

D. Case Study: Deactivating a Total Artificial Heart

E. Supporting Patients who Request Physician-Assisted
Suicide: Towards a Nuanced Approach 

Appendix: Triage: Determining Which Patients to
Prioritize in an Emergency According to Jewish Law

5.  After Death 

A. Definition of Death in Jewish Law

B. Jewish Customs at the End of Life and after One Dies

C. Organ Donation 

D. Jewish Guidance on the Loss of a Baby or Fetus

E. Autopsy and Jewish Law 

F. Cremation and Jewish Law

Appendix: Ethical
Issues in the Sale of Organs 

Burial in a Mausoleum and Jewish Law 

6.  Reproductive Questions 

A. Genetic Testing, Disclosure of Results, and PGD 

B. Assisted Reproductive Technology: Fertility Issues,
Artificial Insemination, IVF 

C. Abortion, Pregnancy Reduction, and Stem Cell
Research 

D. Surrogacy and Egg Donation

E. Labor and Delivery: Some Jewish Customs and Issues
that Arise upon the Birth of a Baby

Appendix: Stories from the Front Lines: Confronting Complex Ethical
Scenarios and Dilemmas

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