"Wit" and "Being Mortal"

I saw a great play this evening at First Presbyterian Theater.  "Wit" is the true story of a very smart woman, a professor specializing in 17th century English Poetry, who is dying of cancer.  It was a brilliantly performed play, sad, funny in spots, gut wrenching in others.  I'm glad I saw it but I don't think I want to go through it again.  Coincidentally, I've started reading a book for a discussion group at church which also deals with death.  The book is "Being Mortal" (subtitle "Medicine and What Matters in the End") by Atul Gawande. I'm just getting into this book but Dr. Gawande's contention seems to be that doctors and other care givers spend a lot of time and effort trying to "fix" problems in aging, sick patients without facing up to the inevitability of death.  Interestingly, that was exactly what was played out in "Wit". The professor suffering from inoperable, incurable  cancer was put through eight months of extreme  essentially experimental therapy so the doctors could see how she would react.  She was basically their lab rat.  Scary, isn't it?