ABSTRACT
The patient's trajectory ends with his death. "Disposing of" the family is a situational requirement for hospitals and their staffs. If family members are at the hospital but not at the death scene, the death first must be announced to them. Various conditions of the patient's dying trajectory, as well as the kinsmen's reputation for behavior, which has developed among staff, will have provided some indication of how they will react to this announcement. There are several distinct phases of the end of the trajectory when family members may take their last looks at the patient. Hospitals have made the disposal of the body routine in several ways. Dead-on-arrival cases tend to generate story development about what could have happened and about the patient's real medical condition and history. Time-jamming and time-spreading indicate the relevant parts of the pre-death story that have bothered the staff.
