What motivates a polemic like Felicia Ackerman's
“Goldilocks and Mrs. Ilyich: A Critical Look at the
‘Philosophy of Hospice’”? Ackerman announces
that in addition to analyzing and criticizing hospice principles
as embodied in the National Hospice Organization's
“Philosophy of Hospice,” her article will also
present “some discussion of hospices in actual practice
…” She presents, in fact, two examples of
hospice practice: one is a dubious anecdote, the meaning
of which she apparently misunderstands, and the second
is a description of a twenty-year-old policy of St. Christopher's
Hospice in England, which, I believe, is no longer strictly
adhered to.