Uta Gerhardt's investigation of decision-making rationality among heart patients at the crossroads between work and retirement breaks new ground in both the cardiological and sociological research landscape. It becomes clear for medicine that patients after a bypass operation do not behave according to a "logic of the clinic," but rather according to a "logic of life." This also points to the age and occupational structures of modern society. For sociology, it becomes evident that medical topics are inherently part of the issues addressed by social sciences. Like other individual disciplines—such as family or cultural sociology—medical sociology can contribute to clarifying general sociological questions and to specifying abstract themes in sociological theory.