Sherwin Bernard Nuland (born Shepsel Ber Nudelman on December 8, 1930, in the Bronx, New York; died March 3, 2014, in Guilford, Connecticut) was an American surgeon, bioethicist, writer, educator, and author. He grew up in a Jewish immigrant family and lost his mother to cancer at age 16, experiences that profoundly shaped his perspectives on medicine and mortality. Nuland earned his bachelor's degree from New York University in 1951 and his M.D. from Yale School of Medicine in 1955. He practiced surgery for over 30 years at Yale-New Haven Hospital, specializing in vascular surgery and treating more than 10,000 patients, eventually becoming a clinical professor of surgery at Yale School of Medicine until his retirement in 2009. He also taught bioethics, history of medicine, and related subjects at Yale College and was affiliated with Yale's Institution for Social and Policy Studies and Program in the History of Science and Medicine. Nuland transitioned to writing later in his career, producing several acclaimed books that blended personal experience with philosophical reflection. His 1994 book 'How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter' won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, challenging romanticized views of death and emphasizing the realities of medical intervention in end-of-life care. Other notable works include 'The Wisdom of the Body' (1997) and 'How We Live' (2007). He was also a speaker on topics like life, death, morality, and medicine at venues including TEDMED, and contributed to public discourse on bioethics, advocating for honest conversations about dying.