While health care at the end of life is changing, the language for talking about treatment options and patient preferences around the end of life is taking longer to change. This book carefully details the way language shapes decisions around end-of-life care. Using ethnographic research from two sites that offer emergency care and end-of-life care a hospice and an emergency department the author illustrates common themes around language use that serve as microcosms of the larger healthcare system in the United States. The sites have different purposes for providing care, yet the themes from...