There is no higher honor for students at the prestigious medical school than to be selected by Professor Arthur Sterling Law to participate in his weekly ethics seminar. Only the best and the brightest are considered. Only the best of these are chosen.

Each patient presented at the seminar poses an ethical dilemma, and the fiercest debates center on the question of prolonging life, particularly the cost of prolonging the life of a desperately ill patient. Can the cost be justified, or should expensive, potentially lifesaving medical care simply be withdrawn?

And there is one group of especially brilliant, especially privileged, especially arrogant students who invariably argue for pulling the plug. If it were within their power, a very real patient would die. But surely medical students do not possess such power...

​