Abstract
The complex societies attribute to the physicians a superhuman knowledge that defies death and refuse to recognize death as part of life. In urgency and emergency services, several professionals work daily and nightly close to life and death. This article analyzes the Western medical practice, based on an ethnographic study conducted with medical professionals who work in a big city emergency and urgency health service. We aimed to understand how these doctors, as individuals, subjects and professionals, deal with life and death in professional praxis. Data analysis pointed to ethical, institutional, cultural and idiosyncratic relations in medical action facing the life(ves) and death(s) of the assisted people.
Key words:
Biomedicine; discourse; medical practice