Perspective

Lisa Belkin's perspective is that of a background observer. Lisa's job is being a reporter for the New York times. She was a national correspondent for the New York Times in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas when she wrote the book. The book came out of her three years at the Ethics Committee of Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. She started in May, 1988. She sat in on the committee's meetings and observed life and death decisions by patients and staff. She attempts to the best of her ability to record the truth. To the best of her knowledge, she claims, the entire book is correct. When she was not present for an event, she had testimony from someone that was. To get the right wording, she asked her characters to read a manuscript of the book before it was published. All the names are real, save four.

Lisa...