Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Being mortal : medicine and what matters in the end / Atul Gawande.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Henry Holt and Company, c 2014Edition: First editionDescription: 282 pages ; 22 cmISBN:
  • 9780805095159
  • 0805095152
  • 9781627797481
  • 1627797483
  • 9781627790550
  • 1627790551
  • 9781250076229
  • 1250076226
Other title:
  • Medicine and what matters in the end
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Online version:: Being mortal.DDC classification:
  • ARCH YNDC 362.17 G284B  23
LOC classification:
  • R726.8 .G39 2014
Contents:
Introduction -- The independent self -- Things fall apart -- Dependence -- Assistance -- A better life -- Letting go -- Hard conversations -- Courage -- Epilogue.
Summary: 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.
Reviews from LibraryThing.com:
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode
Archives Archives SAIACS Archives Room Yandell Collection ARCH YNDC 362.17 G284B (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Not for loan 066696

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-277).

Introduction -- The independent self -- Things fall apart -- Dependence -- Assistance -- A better life -- Letting go -- Hard conversations -- Courage -- Epilogue.

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.

Text in English.

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.