My experience with an aging parent has revealed a great compassion among many health workers.  It has also reinforced a view that the medical establishment is first and foremost an industry and that compassion sits often uncomfortably within those walls.  I found this article on How Doctors Die interesting:  "It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently."