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Now in paperback.
"Like Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, Zitter's book shows how knowing when to do nothing is as vital to being a good doctor as knowing when do to everything."-New York Times Book Review
Jessica Zitter became a doctor because she wanted to be a hero. But after the terrible experience of her first "Code Blue,", in which she found herself cracking the ribs of a patient so old and frail it was unimaginable he would ever come back to life, she began to question her choice. Extreme Measures charts her professional journey from being an ICU doctor who focused on prolonging life at all costs, to becoming a physician who prioritizes the patient's own values and preferences above all else.
"With compassion, intelligence, and a rare expertise, Jessica Zitter shines a light on some of the most difficult issues we face in our lives."
-Angelo Volandes, MD, author of The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-Life Care
"A trenchant critique and a clarion call for end-of-life care that aligns with what each patient values most."-Lucy Kalanithi, MD
About the author
Jessica Nutik Zitter, M.D., MPH, is an expert on the medical experience of death and dying. She attended Stanford University and Case Western Reserve Medical School, and completed her residency in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She was a fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Zitter is double-boarded in the two specialties of pulmonary/critical care medicine and palliative care medicine—a rare combination. She writes for The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Pacific Standard, The Atlantic, and Journal of Palliative Medicine, and is featured in Extremis, an Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary about end-of-life decision-making in an ICU.
