The Sanctity of Social Life

Reexamines the nature of death and dying as seen from the physician's point of view. Unlike other treatments of the subject, this study is concerned not with what physician's should do for the critically ill, but with their actual behavior. Based on extensive interviews with physicians in several medical specialties, more than three thousand questionnaires completed by physicians in four specialties, and studies of the records of actual hospital patients, the book shows that while withdrawal of treatment in certain types of cases is widespread, euthanasia is rare.

DIANA CRANE is associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.