Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland was born Shepsel Ber Nudelman on December 8, 1930 in the Bronx, New York. He received a bachelor's degree from New York University in 1951 and a medical degree from Yale University in 1955. He decided to specialize in surgery and in 1958, became the chief surgical resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital. From 1962 to 1991, he was a clinical professor of surgery at Yale University, where he also taught bioethics and medical history. Before retiring to write full-time, he was a surgeon at Yale-New Haven Hospital from 1962 to 1992. His books include Doctors: The Biography of Medicine, The Wisdom of the Body, The Doctors' Plague, The Uncertain Art, and the memoir Lost in… America. His book, How We Die, won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1994. He was also a contributing editor to The American Scholar and The New Republic. He died of prostate cancer on March 3, 2014 at the age of 83.