Being Mortal
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, and Chicago Tribune, now in paperback with a new reading group guide
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should. Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients' anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them. In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Here he examines its ultimate limitations and failures--in his own practices as well as others'--as life draws to a close. Riveting, honest, and humane, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life--all the way to the very end.BUY THE BOOK
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Community Reviews
Beautiful insight on how we as medical team focus on keeping loved ones alive, but helps us question if it’s always the right approach. Great perspective and a must read.
Difficult topic but such a necessary reality to talk about with family in better understanding those end of life decisions which can be managed better by forethought & planning.
It's not often that a non-fiction book grabs me like this one did. But grab it has done. What important ideas to think about, how end of life decisions can be just that, decisions. We all have different needs and intentions regarding how we want our last days to play out and it is so important to be open to the information that medical professionals can provide, but make decisions based on what we want out of life and death.
Content warning for graphic medical descriptions, death from cancer and old age, hospice, physician assisted suicide, and related topics. I loved this book. It was so incredible, I would 100% recommend this book to anyone, anywhere, even if you don't think matters like death and dying have anything to do with you. I hadn't known much about the medicalization of old age. I really liked the blend of research and personal experience and I think it was well-integrated. This is an example of an incredible nonfiction and I'll read anything Gawande writes.
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