Read the Latest Review from the Hasting Center Report 

"The intention of this book is simple – to improve the care of dying patients and their families. The author carefully weaves theoretical considerations with a clinical pragmatism to help the novice physician reinforce the goals of care for the terminally ill."

--Craig D. Blinderman, MD, MA

Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care

Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, NY

Reviewed in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
Vol.31/No.5 May 2006

"A Palliative Ethic of Care is well worth reading, even by veteran clinicians."

––Mellar P. Davis, MD

Harry R. Horvitz Center for Palliative Medicine

As reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine
2006, 354:15

"The book focuses on the challenges and barriers facing the growing field of palliative care. It serves as a comprehensive primer on the ethics of end-of-life care starting with the ethical and legal principles essential to end-of-life decision making and ending with a practical methodological approach and a pathway to clinical care."

––The British Library
May 2006

"This book, targeting principally physicians-in-training, provides practical advice for melding theory and practice in the real-life world of the acute care hospital. This book is written in a straightforward, informal style, often addressing the reader in the second person."

––James Hallenbeck, MD
Stanford University School of Medicine
The Oncologist

May 2006

"In A Palliative Ethic of Care, Dr. Fins, a consummate educator, extends himself as a mentor. With uncanny discernment, he articulates nagging questions and doubts that arise in young clinicians' minds and offers responses that are clear, insightful and highly practical...destined to become a standard in medical education."

--Ira Byock, MD, Director of Palliative Medicine, Dartmouth  Medical  School, author of  Dying Well

“Dr. Fins combines a physician's practicality with philosophical pragmatism to lead young doctors through the complex process of caring for dying patients. As William James, his mentor in pragmatism, would say, 'it is a worthwhile leading' for it arrives at truths that can make a difference in the experience of doctors and patients alike.”

--Albert R. Jonsen, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, Ethics in Medicine, University of Washington; Co-Director, Program in Medicine and Human Values, California Pacific Medical Center

“The book models how to doctor the dying... By learning how to apply abstract ethical and legal principles to every day medical decision making, this uniquely relevant and readable text teaches students how to formulate a care plan that respects a patient's autonomy, dignity and personhood...There is both a brilliance and a simplicity in the book's writing style.  It is conversational and you feel as if you are on rounds with a master teacher.”

--From the foreword by Kathleen M. Foley, MD, Attending Neurologist, Pain & Palliative Care Service Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

"This is a comprehensive, yet concise, compelling review of the concept, the context, and the content of quality end-of-life care. The emphasis on the need for individual medical decisions to be driven and directed by the goal of care is the book's finest hour and most important contribution. Hopefully it will make the pronouncement, 'There's nothing more we can do,' obsolete. Dr. Fins encourages and empowers the professional with the idea that competent, compassionate, goal-centered care is every bit as rewarding as cure."

--David B. Cotton, MA; MDiv., Jersey Shore University Medical Center
Doody's Enterprises, Inc.

"Recommended as a primary text in courses that address care for the terminally ill. Further recommended to Health Science libraries as a general reference text exploring medical, sociological and philosophical issues of patient care."

--John Aiello
The Electric Review

"Fins is a highly gifted and insightful individual. As a physician and bioethicist, he crafts a vision for good quality care at the end of life. In crafting   a vision, he leads with reason and passion. As a teacher and mentor, he articulates, clarifies, and tackles philosophical, ethical, and legal principles with brilliance and candor. As a narrator of stories, he speaks with feeling and confers meaning on an otherwise unexamined patient's world.  Indeed, my colleague's sentiments are very telling, 'I wish I had this book when I was in medical school.'"

--Cesar G. Espineda, PH,D

Journal of Religion and Health