Being Mortal

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.