y mother’s doctor is refusing to give her antibiotics,” the caller told me in an urgent voice. I asked why. “He says that she’s ninety-two and an infection will kill her sooner or later, so it might as well be this infection.” As disturbing as this call was, as outrageous the doctor’s behavior, I wasn’t particularly surprised. I have been receiving such desperate calls with increasing frequency for the last several years. Not every day. Not every week. But with sufficient regularity to know that something very frightening is happening to American medical ethics.