Author Sherwin Nuland Dies at 83: Leading Voice in End-of-Life Planning

Sherwin Nuland, a surgeon and medical ethicist who was most known for his 1994 book "How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter," died Monday from prostate cancer at his home in Hamden, Conn. He was 83.

His death was confirmed by his daughter, according to the Associated Press (AP). Nuland wrote several books but was most known for that which one a National Book Award detailing what happens to our bodies when we die from heart disease, cancer and other common causes. According to NPR, the book has sold more than 500,000 copies. 

"I have not seen much dignity in the process by which we die," he wrote in his book, according to The New York Times. "The quest to achieve true dignity fails when our bodies fail."

In his book, Nuland notes that his intention was to demythologize death by making it more familiar and less frightening through more reasonable expectations about the future unknown.

Nuland taught surgery and medical history at Yale University and worked as a leader in end-of-life panning against the over-medicalization of death, according to U.S.A. Today.

According to his daughter, Amelia Nuland, he was not ready for his own death. "He told me, I'm not scared of dying, but I've built such a beautiful life, and I'm not ready to leave it."

Excerpt from book "How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter:"

"Death with dignity' is our society's expression of the universal yearning to achieve a graceful triumph over the stark and often repugnant finality of life's last sputterings. But the fact is, death is not a confrontation. It is simply an event in the sequence of nature's ongoing rhythms. Not death but disease is the real enemy, disease the malign force that requires confrontation. Death is the surcease that comes when the exhausting battle has been lost."