The hospital in contemporary Western society has become the place of social legacy of the sick, where medical knowledge is implemented. An ethnography was performed at a public hospital's Intensive Care Unit, to study how decisions among medical professionals are taken, concerning illness and death of patients. There was evidence of specific identity of the ICU staff and a classifying "system" for the in-patients. Examination of this data reveals the complexity of the decision-making process, in which the professional's acts are based on his knowledge, subjectivity and cultural values.
Medical practice; Intensive Care Unit; medical decisions; bioethics; sociology of professions