Dancing with Broken Bones: Poverty, Race, and Spirit-filled Dying in the Inner City
David Wendell Moller
Abstract
This book gives voice and face to a vulnerable and disempowered population whose stories often remain untold: the urban dying poor. Drawing on complex issues surrounding poverty, class, and race, the book illuminates the unique sufferings that often remain unknown and hidden within a culture of broad invisibility. The book demonstrates how a complex array of factors, such as mistrust of physicians, regrettable indignities in care, and inadequate communication among providers, patients, and families, shape the experience of the dying poor in the inner city. This book challenges readers to look ... More
This book gives voice and face to a vulnerable and disempowered population whose stories often remain untold: the urban dying poor. Drawing on complex issues surrounding poverty, class, and race, the book illuminates the unique sufferings that often remain unknown and hidden within a culture of broad invisibility. The book demonstrates how a complex array of factors, such as mistrust of physicians, regrettable indignities in care, and inadequate communication among providers, patients, and families, shape the experience of the dying poor in the inner city. This book challenges readers to look at reality in a different way. Demystifying stereotypes that surround poverty, the book illuminates how faith, remarkable optimism, and an unassailable spirit provide strength and courage to the dying poor. The book serves as a rallying call for compassionate individuals everywhere to understand and respond to the needs of the especially vulnerable, yet inspiring, people who comprise the world of the inner city dying poor.
Keywords:
urban dying poor,
mistrust of physicians,
indignities in care,
inadequate communication,
inner city
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199760138 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199760138.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
David Wendell Moller, author
Director of Medical Humanities, School of Medicine, University of Missouri-Kansas City
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