[spectre] The Last Collaboration | a re-construction of Millie Niss's life and death in a community hospital icu

[marc]

The Last Collaboration: a weird and Not-very-funny story about a death 
in a glitzy glassy Hospital that just completed a $64 million 
modernization program [Paperback]

The Last Collaboration is now available in book form through Amazon UK, 
USA, and Europe with permission from Furtherfield to adapt the online 
version for book publication and permission from Edward Picot to reprint 
his Furtherfield article.

UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Last-Collaboration-Not-very-funny-modernization/dp/061564595X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341313491&sr=1-2

US:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Collaboration-Not-very-funny-modernization/dp/061564595X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341258273&sr=1-1&keywords=%22The+Last+Collaboration%22

I am deeply grateful to all who have helped with this project.

Thanks,
Martha Deed.

The Last Collaboration is a re-construction of Millie Niss's life and 
death in a community hospital icu. Because Millie was intubated but 
alert, her side of every conversation was recorded in a series of 
notebooks she sent home with her mother, Martha Deed. Millie's notes, 
emails, the daily diary she sent home, and posts to her blog are set 
into frames constructed from her mother Martha Deed's log, Millie's 
medical records, clinical guidelines, and the outcomes of two New York 
State Department of Health investigations of Millie's care. Millie 
wanted her story told. She wanted an autopsy performed if she died. 
Because of the autopsy, we have the story. Because Millie was an artist 
and a poet, because her mother is also an artist and a poet, because 
Millie Niss and Martha Deed often made art together, and because both 
mother and daughter were trained patient advocates, we have this 
multimedia fatality review.

About the Author
Martha Deed, Ph.D. is a retired psychologist who is a poet and web 
artist. Her work has appeared in print and online in numerous journals, 
video collections, and galleries. She is a patient advocate on Consumer 
Union's Safe Patient Project. Previous collections have been published 
by Naissance, Furniture Press, and chapbookpublisher.com. She edited a 
collection of her daughter Millie Niss's poetry and texts City Bird: 
Selected Poems (1991-2009) for BlazeVox. Essays related to The Last 
Collaboration have appeared in Yale Journal for the Humanities in 
Medicine, The Buffalo News, Insight (the online magazine of the American 
Society of Professionals in Patient Safety), and Poemeleon.

Reminder - The Last Collaboration

Edward Picot's article about Millie Niss on Furtherfield. Submitted by 
Theresa Wyatt

"I have read The Last Collaboration by Martha Deed and Millie Niss and 
it is a striking account, one that I will never forget and one that I 
will never stop learning from. Mr. Picot introduces this book with laser 
beams of experience and clarity that will enable readers to find their 
way. The way here can be difficult - through the health care "mill," but 
not without respite through poetry or "notes about birds" as Picot 
points out. That he knew Millie Niss and can attest she was "no ordinary 
patient" or that she "...put her finger right onto a recognised problem 
of healthcare..." only confirms what I have already surmised about this 
remarkable woman and her extraordinary mother - that no degree of 
difficulty was going to silence this important narrative. I am happy to 
learn that this documentary book is slated to be used in the classroom 
by a medical professor. This is most encouraging and I hope more 
professors and health care educators will do so."

The Last Collaboration
By Edward Picot - 26/01/2012

The United States loses more American lives to patient safety incidents 
every six months than it did in the entire Vietnam War." Edward Picot 
introduces The Last Collaboration an art documentary book by artists and 
poets Martha Deed and Millie Niss. This work is a construction of 
Millie’s hospital experiences in the last hospital she ever visited. The 
story is told through Millie’s notes, emails, the daily diary she sent 
home, her posts on her Sporkworld blog, her mother’s log, and Millie’s 
medical records. These primary, often raw, documents are framed with 
medical notes and clinical guidelines as well as the outcomes of two NYS 
Department of Health investigations of Millie’s care. Millie wanted her 
story told. She wanted an autopsy performed if she died. Because of the 
autopsy, we have the story.

http://www.furtherfield.org/features/articles/last-collaboration

Featuring Martha Deed
http://www.furtherfield.org/user/mldeed
http://www.sporkworld.org/Deed

-- 
The Last Collaboration
http://www.furtherfield.org/friendsofspork/
Intro by Edward Picot
http://www.furtherfield.org/features/articles/last-collaboration

City Bird: Selected Poems (1991-2009) by Millie Niss, edited by Martha Deed
http://www.blazevox.org/index.php/Shop/Poetry/city-bird-selected-poems-1991
-2009-by-millie-niss-edited-by-martha-deed-192/