Steward Alsop once said, "A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless to resist." (Bolander, 1987) Most people in North America die what may be called a bad death. One study found that "more often than not, patients died in pain, their desires concerning treatment neglected, after spending 10 days or more in an intensive care unit" (Horgan, 1996). In these cases the patients, or their doctors, tried to resist death with the aid of modern medicine. …
