How To Die Best

by Zoe Pollock

Iris Monica Vargas reviews the new book Final Exam by surgeon Pauline Chen:

Chen says, "we learn not only to avoid but also to define death as the result of errors, imperfect technique, and poor judgment. Death is no longer a natural event but a ritual gone awry." For Chen, it is a physician's rituals that allow him or her to evade death, literally and figuratively. "Concentrating on the ritual becomes [the:] professional method of coping, an action that allows him or her to...