Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End 

By Atul Gawande

282 pages

First published Oct. 7, 2014

 Someone must have recommended it. And I must have asked Gio to order it for me. It appeared on my desk last Monday.

I wondered whether it was suggested as something I should read after writing about my stroke. I couldn’t remember. But I liked the look of the book. The size, the thickness, the cover design. And I liked the title.  Being Mortal promises a philosophical treatment of one of the deepest questions we can ask ourselves. And the subtitle – What Matters in the End– promises a big and useful answer. An idea that could change or advance my view of death.

It didn’t take me many pages to realize that the author had a somewhat different objective in writing the book. For him, the question is about geriatric medicine: What should our goals be in terms of providing health care to the old and dying?

Doctors, Gawande says, are too often uncomfortable dealing with their dying patients’ understandable anxieties. They choose, instead, to give them treatments that don’t improve the quality of their remaining years and can make things worse.

One of his most provocative arguments is that hard-won health and safety reporting requirements for elder care facilities might satisfy family members but ignore what really matters to the patients. Despite the popularity of the term “assisted living,” he says, “we have no good metrics for a place’s success in assisting people to live.” And as he points out, a “safe” life isn’t what most people really want.

Although, Gawande identifies no perfect solutions to the problems he presents, the presentation is important and stirring. If nothing else, reading this book will help you better prepare for your own or your loved ones’ final days.

Critical Reception 

* “In his newest and best book, Gawande has provided us with a moving and clear-eyed look at aging and the harms we do in turning it into a medical problem, rather than a human one.” (The New York Review of Books)

* “Gawande’s book is so impressive that one can believe that it may well [change the medical profession].” (Diana Athill, Financial Times/UK)

* “A needed call to action, a cautionary tale of what can go wrong, and often does, when a society fails to engage in a sustained discussion about aging and dying.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

Click here to watch a video review of Being Mortal.