Reflections of physician-authors on death: literary selections appropriate for teaching rounds

Physicians constantly confront to death and respond in a variety of ways to the many deaths that they witness and to their own sense of mortality. Student-doctors should be exposed, prior to and during their clinical training, to these different types of responses, so that they can prepare for their encounters with the "ultimate mystery" and realize that their own reactions, uncertainties and fears are neither unique or unnatural. Writings of physician-authors provide an ideal medium for this exposure. Despite improvements in death education in medical schools, studies have described trainees' desire for more education and have documented deficits in the care of dying patients. This paper briefly describes the responses of physician-authors and their fictional characters to death, in hopes of interesting students in reading and stimulating educators to use these and other literary selections in the classroom and on teaching rounds, in order to facilitate introspection and discussion. Examples of brief readings, which can be used on ward rounds, incorporated into discussions of critical incidents, or read during teachable moments in the outpatient clinic are provided.