The relationship between the protocol of capital punishment in the United States and the use of health care professionals to carry out that task has been overlooked in the literature on punishment. Yet for some time, the operation of the medical sciences in prison has been "part of a disciplinary strategy intrinsic to the development of power relationships." Many capital punishment statutes require medical personnel to be present at, if not actively involved in, executions. The article analyzes some of those statutes in an attempt to show the degree to which medical professionals have become part of the State's executive apparatus. The article describes the legally required intervention of doctors and nurses in a convict's preparation for death as a new relationship of power between prisoners and health care providers. When prisoner becomes patient, the relationship between doctors, nurses and prisoners is less one of care than of control. Medical personnel do not stand beside the killing apparatus; they are an essential part of it. They render the process of execution more efficient and the killing state more legitimate. Note, references, cases cited