It wasn’t his job to explain it over and over, to sit the families down and say, “The husband/the brother/the son you knew is no more, it’s only machines breathing for him now, and you wouldn’t be letting him go, because he’s already gone.” He was the surgeon, not the organ-donation person, not the social worker, not a friend. His job was to say it once. Once was often enough—families would unplug a loved one within a few hours. But certain people required extra attention. TV shows he’d heard of (TV shows his own wife watched) had led some to believe that desperate cases were never that desperate, that all you had to do, really, was to keep asking the surgeon, and the surgeon, because you kept him focussed and…
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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 20, 2019