Being Mortal. Atul Gawande

Being Mortal. Atul Gawande

I was not clear of the book’s narrative going into the read. Through a minimum of looking it clearly centers on learning of death and dying from the surgeon point of you. I should've read in advance from the New York Times review which stated :

In Gawande’s words:

The waning days of our lives are given over to treatments that addle our brains and sap our bodies for a sliver’s chance of benefit. They are spent in institutions—nursing homes and intensive care units—where regimented, anonymous routines cut us off from all the things that matter to us in life. Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need.

"Gawande wants us to know that the tragedy of old age and death cannot be fixed by modern medicine, so we better find some other way to deal with it. He divides his book into eight beautifully written chapters that follow the trajectory from independence to death. Being Mortal, the most personal book he has written, ends with the long dying of his own father."

Lacking a coherent view of how people might live successfully all the way to the very end, we have allowed our fates to be controlled by the imperatives of medicine technology and strangers.

'Veneration of elders may be gone but not because it is been replaced by veneration of youth. It's been replaced by veneration of the independent self.'

The task in healthcare is beyond ensuring health and survival is to enable well being. The questions being:

• What is your understanding of the situation and it's potential outcomes
• What are your fears and what are your hopes
• What are trade-offs you're willing to make you are not willing to make
• What is the course of action the best serves this understanding

( we do not want to endure long pain and short pleasure. Yet certain pleasures can make enduring suffering worthwhile. The peaks are important and so is the ending. Or the more familiar analogy for me - enjoy a few vistas - they make the mountain train ride worth the cinder smoke)

Good questions indeed.

A thoughtful yet sobering read. Atul is an engaging author., who takes us where we might not desire but where we all need