Life and Death in Intensive Care offers a unique portrait of the surgical intensive care unit (SICU), the place in medical centers and hospitals where patients with the gravest medical conditions—from comas to terminal illness—are treated. Author Joan Cassell employs the concept of "moral economies" to explain the dilemmas that patients, families, and medical staff confront in treatment. Drawing upon her fieldwork conducted in both the United States and New Zealand, Cassell compares the moral outlooks and underlying principles of SICU nurses, residents, intensivists, and surgeons. Using real life examples, Life and Death in Intensive Care clearly presents the logic and values behind the SICU as well as the personalities, procedures, and pressures that characterize every case. Ultimately, Cassell demonstrates the differing systems of values, and the way cultural definitions of medical treatment inform how we treat the critically ill.

Joan Cassell is a Research Associate in the Department of Surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine. She is the author of Expected Miracles: Surgeons at Work (Temple), Children in the Field: Anthropological Experiences (Temple), and, most recently, The Woman in the Surgeon's Body.

"Life and Death in Intensive Care is a valuable addition to our growing understanding of our technology- and bureaucracy-intensive hospital system. Joan Cassell is an advocate as well as comparative ethnographer, and her work will appeal to anyone concerned with health policy or the social world of modern medicine generally."—Charles E. Rosenberg, Harvard University

"This is some book.... It is powerful writing, with harsh (accurate) content. There are great quotes, terrific anecdotes, fiery feminism and damning observations of doctors' arrogance in dealing with family, other medical specialties, and nurses."—Critical Care and Resuscitation

"Cassell's ethnographic description is lively and engaging... For the psychologist who has recently entered the medical setting, Cassell's book will be an entertaining and enjoyable educational source."—PsycCRITIQUES