The Death Committee

The Death
Committee

Noah Gordon

Again, for Lorraine:
the girl I married
and the woman she became

In Acknowledgment

Many people showed me kindness while this book was being written. The physicians who suffered my unending questions and gave freely of their encouragement and information must in no way be held responsible for my views or for any errors which may be discovered in my work. They have always had my respect; now they have my gratitude.

I should like to offer thanks to Andrew P. Sackett, M.D., Commissioner, Boston Department of Health and Hospitals, and James V. Sacchetti, M.D., Deputy Commissioner, for making it possible for me to receive instruction and experience at Boston City Hospital as a volunteer surgical technician; to Miss Mary Lawless, R.N., Boston City Hospital Operating Room Supervisor, for teaching me how to behave in the operating room; and to Mr. Samuel Slattery, Operating Room Medical Worker, for causing the research experience to be such a memorable one for me.

In answer to the inevitable question, Suffolk County General Hospital is a product of my imagination and is not modeled after any actual institution, nor is the medical school mentioned in this novel modeled after an existing school.

I am grateful to Lawrence T. Geoghegan, M.D., former Boston City Hospital Chief Surgical Resident, for enabling me to follow his house officers in afternoon rounds, and, for the same privilege, to Mayer Katz, M.D., who became Chief Resident when Dr. Geoghegan went to Vietnam, where Dr. Katz, in his turn, followed.

For allowing me to attend Mortality Conferences in their respective hospitals, I wish to thank Paul Russell, M.D., Director of Transplantation Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital; Samuel Proger, M.D., Physician-in-Chief at the New England Medical Center Hospitals; and Ralph A. Deterling, Jr., M.D., Surgeon-in-Chief at New England Medical Center Hospitals and Director of the First (Tufts) Surgical Service, Boston City Hospital.

Because so many people were generous with their help, and because records and memory are imperfect, I wish to apologize to anyone whose name should appear on this page and does not. For their help and cooperation, I wish to thank Paul Dudley White, M.D.; Robert Kastenbaum, Ph.D.; Lester F. Williams, M.D.; Anthony Monaco, M.D.; Don R. Lipsitt, M.D.; Carl Bearse, M.D.; Miriam Schweber, Ph.D.; Blaise Alfano, M.D.; Robert M. Schlesinger, M.D.; Benjamin E. Etsten, M.D.; Richard A. Morelli, M.D.; Rabbi Hilel Rudavsky; Mr. Patrick R. Carroll; and Atty. Charles J. Dunn.

Richard Ford, M.D., Medical Examiner of Suffolk County, who long ago, with tact and sensitivity, introduced a young reporter to his first autopsy, allowed me to stand at his elbow again and proved that the years have made him no less patient and skilled an educator.

A special word of thanks is due to Jack Matloff, M.D., and to John Merrill, M.D., who gave generously of their time and knowledge and who, along with Susan Rako, M.D., performed the added kindness of reading my manuscript.