From the Center
The Call to Care: Dimensions, Dilemmas, and Directions of Caring, edited and with contributions by Arthur Olsen, Jerome Freeman, Mary Auterman, and Ron Robinson, 495 pages, ISBN 0-944287-22-0, $29.95. Ex Machina Publishing Company for The Center for Ethics and Caring, Sioux Valley Hospital, Sioux Falls, S.D.
By choice or by chance, almost everyone at some time becomes a caregiver. That is one of the revelations in a new multi-discipline anthology, The Call to Care. The editors, drawing on their experience in teaching about caring, have selected essays, poetry, fiction, interviews, and articles which explore the many facets of caring and which pose the questions faced by those who by profession or by personal circumstance take on the role of caregiver. There is something here for everyone, from children of aging parents considering nursing home options to experienced doctors and nurses confronting life-or-death decisions.
The Call to Care fulfills the promise of its subtitle - Dimensions, Dilemmas, and Directions of Caring - by providing examples that illustrate the scope of caregiving, the ethical, financial, and political problems posed, and the process of groping toward solutions. The universality of the subject is suggested by a glance at the table of contents, which includes whole works by Leo Tolstoy and William Carlos Williams; excerpts from classics like Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, and My Book for Kids with Cansur, by Jason Gaes; interviews with health-care professionals such as hospital administrator Becky Nelson and pain-control advocate Sue Halbritter; philosophical discussions by such renowned thinkers as Karl Barth and Paul Tillich; along with a wealth of original material contributed by the editors.