Abstract
A patient of mine died recently, and as I dutifully filled out his death certificate beneath a sputtering fluorescent light in my hospital's admitting office, I wondered about the tales we tell in medicine and what purposes they serve. In the block print and black ink required by the form, I wrote “RESPIRATORY ARREST” and then “CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE.” As I signed it, I felt how woefully inadequate was the summary I had just provided. Yet there were no blanks on the standard legal document for explaining the patient's chronic pain or for describing his faded tattoos or recounting . . .
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