Background: Breast cancer (BC), the most common cancer diagnosed in women in the United States, is a heterogeneous disease in which age-specific incidence rates (ASIRs) differ by race and mortality rates are higher in blacks than whites. Goals: (i) understand the reasons for the black-to-white ethnic crossover in the ASIRs; (ii) formulate a…

Discusses three pathographies as models for the "good death." In each, the author organizes the phenomena associated with the illness and death of a spouse from cancer into a coherent pattern. The result is three different paradigms of the experience of dying: "ritual death,""victorious death," and "one's own death." (Author/LLL)