In her book Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality, Pauline Chen concentrates on the problem of doctors’ attitude to the fact of patients’ dying and analyzes the doctors’ behavior in relation to her own experience and practice. Dr. Chen states that death as a situation is traditionally depersonalized by doctors in the hospital. However, it is important to deviate from the general discussion of the problem of mortality in hospital and pay attention to Dr. Chen’s considerations about the possibility to provide the patients with the opportunity to die at home instead of staying in the hospital. Patients should receive the chance to die at home where the surroundings are familiar, the relatives are present, and death is perceived as a sacred act.
According to Dr. Chen, the doctors’ approaches to resolving the situation of the patients’ dying are rather confusing because of the fact the patients’ death is the real challenge not only for relatives but also for doctors. The possibility to provide the necessary care and treatment at home for those patients who are incurables is a good alternative to avoid a lot of problematic situations in hospital. Moreover, dying at home, sick people can feel the relatives’ attitude to them and their care in the situation when the humane attitude is significant, but many doctors often resist the desire to express their empathic emotions to the patients and their relatives. Dr. Chen supports her argument with examples from real practice according to which it is possible to conclude that the decision to let incurable patients die at home is the effective method to resolve the ethical aspects of the medical problem of mortality in hospitals.