"How Doctors Die"

“How Doctors Die” is written by Ken Murray, a retired clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Southern California. Its publication generated national attention after becoming viral on the internet. It helped develop conversation on controversial issues about patients’ wishes to end their lives and doctors’ decisions.

“How to Die”, similar to “The Good Short Life” may be written for an audience who is dealing with death of loved ones or just informative reading for a normal person. Murray wanted to provide the readers with the doctors’ views on death, which surprisingly contrasts with what they do explain his own choice on his death.

In his essay, Murray states that doctors are trained to do everything to keep their patients alive. However, they don’t want the same care for themselves. Murray’s fellow physicians have said that they’d rather be left to die than put in intensive care. “Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped “NO CODE” to tell physicians not to perform CPR on them” (232). When it comes to dying, most doctors will refuse to get radiation, chemotherapy, or surgical treatment even though they have access to any sort of medical care they want. So why are doctors so adamant about dying without medical help? According to Murray, “doctors know enough about modern medicine to know it’s limits” and after treating so many patients, they know “what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone” (231). So when terminally ill doctors are faced with the decision to seek further treatment or stop treatment and spend time with their family, doctors will usually choose the latter. 

Through rhetorical devices and personal examples Murray achieves his purpose of explaining how people deserve a life of quality, not just quantity and a death with dignity. His essay is able to appeal to the readers through his use of logos and pathos. He persuades the audiences against intensive care for terminally sick patients with numbers and stats of the medical bills. In addition, he appealed to the audience emotionally by giving examples of his dead patient and cousin. The patient went against his advice and sought surgery, dying shortly after, but his cousin sought no medical help and enjoyed his last couple of days. “How to Die” was an interesting read that provided readers with a different perspective. 

"No Code"

“Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped “NO CODE” to tell physicians not to perform CPR on them” (232).

Jacob Sanders 

Jacobsandersillustration.blogspot.com