Fresh Air and End of Life Care

Today, NPR's Fresh Air has an interview with Dr. Robert Marensen, author of A Life Worth Living.  He provides some interesting insights into the problems with our current health system and our focus on longevity over quality of life.  Here is the brief blurb from the show:

Over the course of his career, author, doctor and bioethicist Robert Martensen has treated an estimated 75,000 patients in the emergency room and the ICU.

In his new book, A Life Worth Living Martensen presents case studies that illustrate the problems and complexities of American health care system, and argues that safeguarding the quality of a patient's life sometimes trumps the urge to sustain life at all cost.

Martensen has held positions teaching bioethics and medical history at Harvard Medical School and Tulane University in New Orleans. He currently directs office of history at the National Institutes of Health n Bethesda, Maryland.