The science of bringing back the dead

Guest: David Casarett

Thanks to new medical technologies, health care providers are now able to save patients who in the past would have died. And while we are getting better at re-starting life, medical ethicist and hospice physician DAVID CASARETT wonders if the edge of the envelope is being pushed. In his new book Shocked: Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead, Casarett, investigates the history of resuscitation and explores new methods of bringing back the dead like implantable defibrillators and low-temperature medicine. He also raises important ethical questions about the quality of life for those who have been revived. Casarett, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, joins us in the studio today on Radio Times.