ABSTRACT
Death and dying in hospital, what it is like, why it is that way and what can be done to improve it are not easy issues to address with great certainty. We have no firm knowledge of: how many people die in the hospital; what are the circumstances of their deaths; and, what causes the human problems associated with them. Attending physicians have ultimate responsibility for medical decisions. However, they have responsibilities and contacts throughout the hospital, often in various wards, and not just for individual patients, but for medical education, research, various dimensions of hospital accreditation, and other aspects of administration. They often delegate their medical decision-making power to the interns, residents, medical students whose education they supervise "down the line," i.e., attending physicians supervise residents who supervise interns, who supervise medical students.
