Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Surgeon Atul Gawande “learned about a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn’t one of them.” As he gained experience as a doctor, he realized that many medical professionals and institutions were failing elderly people abysmally because they didn’t address the goal that mattered most to the aged, namely, “how to make life worth living when we’re weak and frail and can’t fend for ourselves anymore.”
 
With compassion and wisdom gained from years of experience, both professional and personal, Gawande argues in Being Mortal that the social experiment of treating aging and mortality as medical concerns has failed. In contrast, he points out many hopeful and helpful initiatives and new ways of thinking that are transforming elder care. (Doubleday Canada)