This study explored gender and specialty differences in death anxiety, locus of control, and purpose in life of physicians, and if these variables might influence the clinical behavior of physicians regarding death notification. The subjects were 155 attending and house staff physicians who responded to mailed questionnaires. The female physicians scored higher in death anxiety than the male physicians. The psychiatrists scored higher in death anxiety than surgeons. There was a trend for the internists to have scores indicating a more external locus of control. Purpose in life was inversely correlated with death anxiety and external locus of control. Death anxiety was related to the physicians' preferred mode of conveying the news of an unexpected patient death to the next of kin.