Several years ago, I read cancer surgeon Fumio Yamazaki's unforgettable book titled "Dying in a Japanese Hospital." Through case studies of his patients, he describes the final moments in the lives of terminal cancer sufferers. Invariably, just as a patient is slipping away, doctors battle to resuscitate him or her, shooing family members away while they perform various aggressive procedures, only for the patient to die soon after, away from loved ones, without dignity.
The resuscitation battle, says Yamazaki, is a kind of fake concern, a way that the doctors can demonstrate their dedication.
Moreover, as in Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film "Ikiru (To Live)," terminally ill patients in Japan are usually not even told they are dying.