Time to Die

Physicians are supposed to 'Do no harm', but does this include adding to and prolonging the suffering of terminally ill patients who are not in hospice care? In Time to Die, a young man is seriously affected by the 'extended' dying of his mother and father and he sets out to better define the meaning of the Hippocratic oath. He is empowered by a dying Inuit woman who, gazing at a spectacular aurora borealis in Barrow, Alaska, receives the answer she is looking for regarding her decision to stop her own cancer treatment. Certain terminally ill patients in extreme pain unexpectedly begin to die in the Mar Vista hospital in San Diego. A surgical resident does what he can to palliate these desperately ill patients, but the head nurse, pushes for a more aggressive approach. The incipient loving relationship between them shatters over the definition of harm and the limits of a doctor's ability to bring relief. Even a dedicated detective is stymied in his efforts to find the killer. Underneath a thrilling and provocative storyline, Clay Alexander writes a timely novel which addresses the end-of-life issues that we all have to deal with at some point.