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Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Atul Gawande

Finish date: March 16, 2016

Discussion: Lunch Bunch Book Club

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Miller's Valley Discussion
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What Members Thought

Jul 25, 2020 Kristel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, death-and-dying, aging, sociology

This book was not anything new to me having studied aging in undergrad and medical sociology in grad school but it was a great review and reminder and well written. I also have experienced many of the topics and if I haven't experienced them fully, I will be as I approach those last last years of my own life. I have lived through the nursing home boom, the assisted living and have also been involved with hospice during the end stages of my own parents lives. Both of my parents came to live with This book was not anything new to me having studied aging in undergrad and medical sociology in grad school but it was a great review and reminder and well written. I also have experienced many of the topics and if I haven't experienced them fully, I will be as I approach those last last years of my own life. I have lived through the nursing home boom, the assisted living and have also been involved with hospice during the end stages of my own parents lives. Both of my parents came to live with me (the daughter of the family) and lived out their final days in our home. I did not live close enough to them to let them stay in their own home which did grieve my mother. I was able to be at my dad's bedside as he let out that final breath. I also agree that assisted suicide is the opposite of success and a failure. The goal should be a good life to the very end and not a good death. The dying role is to share memories, pass on wisdom and keepsakes, settle relationships, establish legacies, make peace with God, and ensure that those who are left behind will be okay. (pg249). Part of being able to have these opportunities is to know how to ask the right questions and not let the medical authority be in charge of the decisions. They can offer us information and they can give us options but if they are not as astute as the author is they might not ask the right questions. We need to be prepared to help direct those questions so that we can live our lives well.

The author didn't always ask the right questions but he learned. He also had to be "listening". Some of the questions he would ask is "what were the person's goals, what the fears for the future were. Most really wanted time to be at home and do things that they most enjoyed. A lot of people end up choosing treatments that add to the pain, decrease quality of life and offer very little if any additional time.

Quotes:
"..we've decided that they (medical) should be the ones who largely defind how we live our waning days. For more than half a century now, we have treated the trials of sickness, aging, and mortality as medical concerns. Its been an experiment in social engineering, putting our fate in the hands of people valued more for their technical powers than for their understanding of human needs". I think this is the big failure even in this time of pandemic. We have allowed once again the medical to dictate how our family members will live and die without their family. How awful. There is nothing that justifies this. Family and a life lived well is the most important thing in my opinion. We will never get a chance to make it up to our loved ones either. We will not get those chances back. ...more

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