ABSTRACT
A reasonable criticism of the type of data which have been presented in the previous chapters is that it may not reflect the actual behavior of physicians. In order to validate these findings, attempts were made to obtain information from hospital records concerning the treatment of critically ill patients. The principal problem in conducting such studies is to find suitable samples of cases. After much consideration, it was decided that the most appropriate way to validate the study of doctors’ attitudes toward the treatment of critically ill adult patients was through: (1) Examination of the hospital charts for all patients who had died and all those who had been successfully resuscitated during a calendar year (1969) on the non-private 1 service of the major teaching hospital in which most of the interviews were conducted; (2) Observation of a sample of patients on this service during the course of their treatment.
