Abstract

Every July, when new resident physicians arrive at our teaching hospital, a colleague reminds them that “You now work in the train station of the gods. People coming and going all the time. You’ll need to ask spiritual questions.” He can offer this counsel annually because—whether it arrives early, as expected, or in error—every one of us is awaiting her departing train. Every few years, an experienced physician-writer offers counsel on what it means to work in these train stations, to tend to people as they die in contemporary hospitals. The physician-writer often describes the equivalent of train wrecks—harried and heedless deaths—and sounds a call for reform. The call is answered, in part, by...