Physicians caring for dying patients often miss the beauty and grandeur of death, said bestselling author and physician Abraham Verghese at the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Santa Clara, Calif.

Verghese, a Stanford University professor, highlighted the importance of bedside medicine and physical examination in an era of advanced technology. Terminally ill patients in hospital beds, he said, often receive less attention than the data stored within their files. Patients, he explained, have become “iPatients.”

He opened his keynote speech with the story of 19th century writer and physician Anton Chekhov, who died at age 44 from tuberculosis Near the end of his life, he wished to travel with his wife to the Black Forest of Germany, to the Badenweiler spa.

When he first got there, Chekhov perked up: he stopped coughing, his color got better, he had loads of energy, and it seemed like a brilliant thing to have done, to have come to this place. Then all of a sudden, on the night of July 2, 1904, he broke loose with a massive hemoptysis, a massive coughing of blood.

So they sent for the spa physician, a man by the name of Dr. Schwöhrer. At that point in time, Chekhov was undoubtedly thought to be the most famous physician in the world, and here’s poor Dr. Schwöhrer, who is from this nice little gig at the Badenweiler spa, and he is called in the middle of the night because the most famous physician in the world is dying.

Chekhov, in a final reflex of courtesy, sat up to say, “I’m dying.”

Dr. Schwöhrer was about to send for an oxygen pillow, when Chekhov, lucid to the end said, “What’s the use doctor? Before it comes, I will be a corpse.”

So, Dr. Schwöhrer ordered a bottle of Champagne. When it came, Chekhov took a glass, and turning to his wife, Olga, he said, “It’s been so long since I’ve had Champagne.” He drained the glass, lay down, turned over to the bedside and stopped breathing. He turned from life to death.

Verghese said he has long been fascinated by this story, because of its poignancy and Schwöhrer’s decision to order Champagne.

“I’ve presided over many, many, many deaths in the AIDS era, being at the bedside, but never have I ordered a bottle of Champagne,” he said. Schwöhrer’s actions provided Chekhov and his wife a simple and beautiful death.

Verghese’s first book, My Own Country, was published in 1994 and traces the deaths that he witnessed during the AIDS epidemic.

“My epiphany came one morning when I was in clinic, and as you can imagine, you get to know these young men very well,” Verghese said. “I was young then, they were my age, and there was something very poignant– that I was caring for young men my age who were dying.”

When one patient was too sick to visit the hospital, Verghese traveled to his home in rural, east Tennessee to visit. Verghese wanted to see him once more, and the patient’s family was emotionally impacted by his trip.

“It seemed to help them come to terms with this illness and seemed to signal to them that I would not abandon him, that I would be there until the end,” he said. “This was a revelation to me. This is what the horse and buggy doctor 100 years ago did so well. They were able to heal, even when they could not cure.”