This encounter has come after days, weeks or even months of terrible emotional and physical anguish, avalanches of bewildering, conflicting information and opinion, hopes raised and lost, and long vigils in the family waiting area. Now, it is the opinion of the I.C.U. staff that survival is no longer an option, and I share this opinion.
Living or dying is not at issue. The question this family confronts is how the patient will die: a little sooner, with adequate morphine, surrounded by loved ones in the hospice unit, or a little later, in a never dark or quiet patch of the I.C.U., ribs broken by failed, if well-intentioned, CPR.
Add to this the following: The patient and family are black. And while race should not be relevant at this moment, research tells us otherwise.
