Overview

The Spirit Ambulance is a journey into decision-making at the end of life in Thailand, where families attempt to craft good deaths for their elders in the face of clashing ethical frameworks, from a rapidly developing universal medical system, to national and global human-rights politics, to contemporary movements in Buddhist metaphysics. Scott Stonington’s gripping ethnography documents how Thai families attempt to pay back a “debt of life” to their elders through intensive medical care, followed by a medically assisted rush from the hospital to home to ensure a spiritually advantageous last breath. The result is a powerful exploration of the nature of death and the complexities arising from the globalization of biomedical expertise and ethics around the world.  

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9780520343900

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"""​​I commend Stonington on this powerful and practically useful study which will have a lasting impact on my practice of bioethics (and I imagine that of many others) in a culturally diverse context. I would highly recommend this book for scholars (such as those in anthropology and religious studies), for those with a general interest in various approaches to dying and caring for the dying, and especially for those who wish to improve cultural safety when planning and delivering healthcare with Thai patients and families in diaspora."" * Journal of Buddhist Ethics * ""Stonington’s ethnographic ‘journey’ and gradually growing understanding emerges continually through the narrative of the book, and to this reviewer is one of the book’s most engaging aspects, and perhaps one of its central lessons for an important readership, medical and health practitioners."" * Asian Medicine: Journal of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine *"

??I commend Stonington on this powerful and practically useful study which will have a lasting impact on my practice of bioethics (and I imagine that of many others) in a culturally diverse context. I would highly recommend this book for scholars (such as those in anthropology and religious studies), for those with a general interest in various approaches to dying and caring for the dying, and especially for those who wish to improve cultural safety when planning and delivering healthcare with Thai patients and families in diaspora. * Journal of Buddhist Ethics * Stonington's ethnographic 'journey' and gradually growing understanding emerges continually through the narrative of the book, and to this reviewer is one of the book's most engaging aspects, and perhaps one of its central lessons for an important readership, medical and health practitioners. * Asian Medicine: Journal of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine *

Author Information

Scott Stonington, MD, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, International Studies, and Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan.  

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