Causa Mortis is a satiric play by Jacob M. Appel that lampoons the modern medical establishment. The plot focuses on a woman, Eleanor, whose brain surgeon has accidentally left his watch in her skull. Her daughters urge her to have the timepiece extracted before it harms her, but every surgeon who attempts to remove it dies during the process. Critic Donald Calamia described the play as "a needle in the eyes of an industry that far-too often refuses to admit its human failings."