AN AIR OF bittersweet nobility envelops this collection of cancer essays. Seven prominent bioethicists collaborated to produce Malignant—five who battled the disease within their own bodies and two who witnessed and supported spouses with cancer. Despite its unfortunate title, the authors hope to inform and engage three very different audiences confronting cancer: “patients and their families, hoping to alert them to some of the problems they may face … doctors and nurses, hoping to show them what ethics looks like from the perspective of cancer patients and their caregivers … [and] our colleagues, because what we learned belongs in the ethics conversation.” I suspect it is the last group to whom the pages of Malignant will find the most appeal.
