Book Review: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
Five Stars
“How we seek to spend our time may depend on how much we perceive ourselves to have.”
“We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love.”
This book should be read by everyone who expects to die, which excuses half of us. Americans today deny that life will end, often in unpleasant circumstances. Our head-in-the-sand attitude only makes our dilemma worse.
“Twenty-five percent of all Medicare spending is for five percent of patients in the final year of life … most of little apparent benefit.”
Better solutions are possible, but we have to seek and demand them. Left to themselves, the medical and government communites will treat us like high-cost, low-success science experiments.
“The closing phase of a modern life often looks like a mounting series of crises from which medicine can offer Continue reading
As a Matter of Fancy 