Being mortal : medicine and what matters in the end

by Atul Gawande

Paper Book, 2014

Status

Available

Call number

R726.8.G39 2014

Publication

New York : Metropolitan Books : Henry Holt & Company, 2014.

Description

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.… (more)

LCC

R726.8.G39 2014

Original publication date

2014-10-07

Physical description

282 p.; 22 cm

ISBN

9780805095159

Barcode

31342000114115
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