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Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Saturday, January 21, 2023

In Being Mortal, author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

Goodreads Summary

Too many times the question is often "how long do I have" instead of "how can I make the time I have left better?" As someone who would invariably ask the former, this book was refreshing in its focus on how to improve the inevitable deaths that are described. The author is passionate about his subject and clearly well-versed in hospice and palliative care. There is an art to talking to a terminal patient and the book describes several cases when that discussion is done well and several where, for various reasons, the patient persists long past where they should have chosen comfort over short-lived longevity. I appreciated the personal aspect of this book when the author discusses his own father, his decision-making process, and the outcomes of those decisions. I love the intention behind this book and would recommend it to healthcare professionals, families of patients with terminal illnesses, and terminal patients. 


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