Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

by Sheri Fink

Concepts of triage and medical rationing are a barometer of how those in power in a society value human life.

But what does the “greatest good” mean when it comes to medicine? Is it the number of lives saved? Years of life saved? Best “quality” years of life saved? Or something else?

“When I made my mother a DNR, I did not know it meant ‘do not rescue.’ ”

These…these…these…the correct word would have been, ‘These motherfuckers are talking about killing people!’ ”

told her that people there would not be interested in receiving something so detailed, but Rider insisted on being thorough.

the author could use the same advice…

At the fire officials’ suggestion, they had put on gowns and drawn the triage symbol “C” on themselves to look like patients so they could be evacuated by military helicopter.

He’d made a pledge to himself years earlier, after touring the Holocaust concentration camp Dachau, to refuse to comply with misdirection.

Foti replied, crooked teeth showing between chapped lips.

this seems petty as an author but i understand

Anna Pou opted in for a share of the settlement.

okay i’m team jail now

For now the lessons seemed to be that in a disaster if you’re a doctor, you’re in charge. If you feel giving large doses of morphine and Versed are appropriate, go ahead. It’s your call. “Is this what we want young doctors to learn?” he asked. “It’s a goddamn precedent, a very dangerous, bad precedent.”