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Being mortal medicine and what matters in the end

In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its endingMedicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in t...

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Main Author: Gawande, Atul (Author)
Format: Downloads eBook Books eBook
Language: English
Published: 2014.
Subjects:
Quality of life.
Electronic books.
Online Access: Go to Downloadable eBook Here.
Summary: In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its endingMedicine 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. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.
Physical Description: 1 online resource
Format: Requires OverDrive Read (file size: N/A KB) or Adobe Digital Editions (file size: 727 KB) or Kobo app or compatible Kobo device (file size: N/A KB) or Amazon Kindle (file size: N/A KB).
ISBN: 9781627790550
Author Notes: Atul Gawande is a surgical resident in Boston and staff writer on medicine and science for The New Yorker. A former Rhodes scholar, he received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He lives with his wife and three children in Newton, Massachusetts.

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