How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland

Drawing upon his own broad experience and the characteristics of the six most common death-causing diseases, Nuland examines what death means to the doctor, patient, nurse, administrator, and family. Thought provoking and humane, his is not the usual syrup-and-generality approach to this well-worn topic. Fundamental to it are Nuland’s experiences with the deaths of his aunt, his older brother, and a longtime patient. With each of these deaths, he made what he now sees as mistakes of denial, false hope, and refusal to abide by a patient’s wishes. Disease, not death, is the real enemy, he reminds us, despite the facts that most deaths are unpleasant, painful, or agonized, and to argue otherwise is to plaster over the truth. The doctor, Nuland stresses, should instill in dying patients the hope not for a miraculous cure but for the dignity and high quality of the remainder of their lives as well as of what they have meant–and will continue to mean–to family, friends, and colleagues. Nuland also has strong feelings about suicide and “assisted death”: the doctor should be prepared psychologically and practically to help the longtime patient slip off the scene in relative comfort. William Beatty –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

“Eloquent and uncommonly moving… Nuland writes with unsentimental passion.”- Time

“Engrossing… We are in the hands of a remarkable portraitist whose cultivated thought… quietly and informatively instructs and advises us on a subject of universal concern.”- The New York Times Book Review

“Nuland’s work acknowledges, with unmatched clarity, the harsh realities of how life departs… There is compassion, and often wisdom, in every page.”- San Francisco Examiner

“Nuland combines the clinical eye of a physician with… emotional and philosophical reflectiveness.”- Newsday

Attempting to demythologize the process of dying, Nuland explores how we shall die, each of us in a way that will be unique. Through particular stories of dying–of patients, and of his own family–he examines the seven most common roads to death: old age, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, accidents, heart disease, and strokes, revealing the facets of death’s multiplicity.
“It’s impossible to read How We Die without realizing how earnestly we have avoided this most unavoidable of subjects, how we have protected ourselves by building a cultural wall of myths and lies. I don’t know of any writer or scientist who has shown us the face of death as clearly, honestly and compassionately as Sherwin Nuland does here.”–James Gleick

Sherwin B. Nuland, MD, was Clinical Professor of Surgery at Yale University until his retirement in 2009, though he continues to teach Biomedical Ethics and Medical History to Yale undergraduates, and serve the university in various capacities.  He won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Book Critics Circle Award when this book was initially published.  In hardcover and paperback, How We Die was on the New York Times bestseller list for a total of thirty-four weeks, and has been translated into twenty-nine languages.  Dr. Nuland and his family live in Connecticut.