Being Mortal

Medicine and What Matters in the End

#1 New York Times Bestseller

In Being Mortal, bestselling 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.

Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life—all the way to the very end.

Changed my knowledge and perspective as a young adult

This book helped me cope during my grandfather’s decline in health. I experienced a roller coaster of emotions- I cried, I was angry, I learned something and felt empowered. As a young adult who had a really hard time seeing aging and death from the perspective of a caretaker and an elderly person, this book made me realize how precious and complicated end of life care is. I feel better equipped to support my grandfather and my family in making the right decisions during this difficult time.

We will all have our ending...

How we choose to face it will be the measure of courage. Just finished this audiobook. Sure, it's something none of us wants to think about, but what an amazing framework for addressing the hard stuff. I wish I had read it before having to experience the difficult end to my mom's life journey; I think it would have helped us better navigate the inevitabilities. Highly recommended reading/listening for all of us, and it's never too late to learn a better way for the impending end for ourselves and our loved ones.

Plan ahead

The time to start thinking about death and dying is now, before one gets sick. The author, a surgeon, writes of his own experiences with death in his patients and families after starting with a hood review of growing old in America today. Sometimes it reads like a confession of how he could have handled patients' last days better. He concludes with an endorsement of palliative care and hospice. Dying on a ventilator in the ICU may be common, but there are better ways to meet one's end. If you gave sick lived ones, read this book.

A book relevant for all of us. We only are born once and only die once. I should be done with caring respectful support.

As a nurse for over 40 years, as a midwife for over half that time and a daughter of parents faced with chronic debilitating diseases, I found this book enormously thought provoking. The idea of courageous conversation is meaningful on so many levels. I encourage everyone to read this book and discuss the content with family, coworkers and healthcare providers.

The truth that we avoid hearing

Well done but difficult to listen to as we realize we may or may not age or die well. This book brings an awareness that begs each of us to make choices that matter in daily living