Analysis Of Ken Murray's Essay 'How Doctors Die'

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In Ken Murray's essay, "How Doctors Die", the author discusses and informs the reader about how the seemingly unusual way doctors spend the last few months or so of their lives compared to the rest of America. Murray informs the reader about how truly different they handle the situation. ”What’s unusual about them (doctors) is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little.” This just shows how most people, when they find out they have a life threatening illness or disorder, will ask for whatever is possible to be done so that they may live. But for when doctors in most cases first learn of a life threatening issue they have, they just accept it. They do not ask for the most extreme measures to be taken, …show more content…

They have to watch families and friends beg for whatever it takes to work, and even then, if doctors could actually do these things, there is a small chance it would work. Some doctors have medallions on them selves that say "no code”, which means that if something were to happen to them, they would not want anyone to try and preform CPR because they believe it is simply not worth it. "They want to make sure, when the time comes, that no heroic measures will happen - that they will never have to experience, during their last few moments on earth, someone breaking their ribs in an attempt to resuscitate them with CPR.” The author says this to show what doctors are willing to do to make sure the they do not have their last moments in this world to be agonizing and, that when they do die, it is peaceful. Not painful or stressful. This really helps Murray’s big point on how doctors will not take the long and painful way out, but the short and calm one. Also, when Murray is talking about the “no code” medallions, he uses imagery to help the reader picture what it looks like on doctors. “Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped “no code” to tell physicians not to preform CPR on them. I have even seen it as a tattoo.” When he talks about the medallions and tattoo he has seen throughout his career of the

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