#1 New York Times Bestseller
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 ending
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.
Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life—all the way to the very end.
- New Non-fiction eBooks
- Most popular
- New Fiction eBooks
- New York Times Bestsellers - Adult Fiction eBooks (Updated April 15th)
- New York Times Bestsellers - Adult Non-Fiction eBooks (Updated April 15th)
- New YA eBook
- See all
- New Non-fiction eAudiobooks
- Most popular
- New Fiction eAudiobooks
- New York Times Bestsellers - Adult Fiction Audiobooks (Updated April 15th)
- New York Times Bestsellers - Adult Non-Fiction Audiobooks (Updated April 15th)
- New YA eAudio
- See all
- Popular magazines
- Business & Finance Magazines
- Cooking, Food & Drink
- Craft Magazines
- Fashion Magazines
- Gaming
- Gardening and Landscape
- Kids Magazines
- Health and Fitness Magazines
- Hobbies
- House and Home
- Men's magazines
- Science & Technology Magazines
- See all