And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life

A reassuring and illuminating examination on our conflicting wishes about the end of life, how the politics and routines of the American hospital have formed our understanding and experience of death, and ultimately why what we consider a "good death" is so hard to attain.

In a penetrating and revelatory study, medical anthropologist Dr. Sharon Kaufman uses two years of intensive observations and interviews with scores of patients, family members, physicians, nurses, social workers, and othe...