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Being mortal : medicine and what matters in the end / Atul Gawande.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Metropolitan Books : Henry Holt & Company, 2014Edition: First editionDescription: 282 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780805095159 (hardcover)
  • 0805095152 (hardcover)
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 362.17/5 23
LOC classification:
  • R726.8 .G39 2014
NLM classification:
  • 2014 M-608
  • WB 310
Contents:
The independent self -- Things fall apart -- Dependence -- Assistance -- A better life -- Letting go -- Hard conversations -- Courage.
Summary: 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.
List(s) this item appears in: Anatomy Booklist
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Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Book Book Karen H. Huntsman Library Main Book Collection - Second Level 362.175 G248b 1 Available 38060007447006
Book Book Karen H. Huntsman Library Main Book Collection - Second Level 362.175 G248b 2 Available 38060007473994
Total holds: 0

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-277).

The independent self -- Things fall apart -- Dependence -- Assistance -- A better life -- Letting go -- Hard conversations -- Courage.

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.

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