Being Mortal
A review of

Being Mortal

Medicine and What Matters in the End

Atul Gawande • Metropolitan Books • 2014

A Long Road

by David Meyer

MacArthur Fellow, Harvard professor and National Book Award finalist Atul Gawande combines compassion with his medical know-how to present a sobering account of the state of care for the elderly in the United States.

MacArthur Fellow, Harvard professor, surgeon, New Yorker writer and National Book Award finalist, Dr. Atul Gawande writes compassionately about how medicine and the body affect life, work, the spirit and the hard job of getting older. Gawande, who serves in President Joseph Biden’s administration as assistant administrator for global health in the US Agency for International Development, addresses mortality with knowledge and depth. He writes about knowing you are born to die and what the processes of dying entail. He describes changing attitudes toward mortality and related shifts in medical and nursing policies.

Terminal Illness

Most doctors know little about terminal illnesses or managing the process of aging. This reality dawned on Gawande when he began practicing medicine.

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    J. S. 9 years ago
    this is a superb book and if you need convincing read the abstract and then buy the whole thing. Read the checklist manifesto too for another thought provoking read by Atul Gwande