Haider Warraich graduated from medical school in Pakistan in 2009. He did his residency in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is currently a fellow in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center. His medical and Op Ed pieces have appeared in media outlets such as The New York Times and The Atlantic.
Statisticians put the number of people who die each year at 56 million, which comes out to 153,000 deaths a day, 107 deaths per minute. In the past, the majority of men, women, and children died in their homes. These days only one in five people dies at home. Most breathe their last breath in hospitals or nursing homes.
What has caused this drastic change? Warraich contends that the medical establishment has changed the end of life. Modern medicines and medical technologies have brought about an extension of life and more extended dying processes. Because of these developments, dying assumes new significance as a stage in our lives. This, in turn, compels patients, family members, and doctors to make thorny decisions that are different for each dying process.
With a sturdy grasp of all the complications of death and dying, Warraich
writes crisply about medical ethics, modern technology, resuscitation, pulling the plug, patients who desire death, and the recent development of more dialogue and discussion about the end of life.
