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DOCTORS AND PATIENTS Previous Volume 351:1167-1169 September 16, 2004 Number 12 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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A patient of mine died recently, and as I dutifully filled out his death certificate beneath a sputtering fluorescent light in my hospital's admitting office, I wondered about the tales we tell in medicine and what purposes they serve. In the block print and black ink required by the form, I wrote "RESPIRATORY ARREST" and then "CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE." As I signed it, I felt how woefully inadequate was the summary I had just provided. Yet there were no blanks on the standard legal document for explaining the patient's chronic pain or for describing his faded tattoos or recounting . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

(Identifying details about the patient have been changed to protect his privacy.)

From Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston.

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