02532cam a2200445 i 4500 390918077 TxAuBib 20190904120000.0 170911|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 9781250076229 paperback 1250076226 paperback (OCoLC)1003291330 TxAuBib rda Gawande, Atul. Being mortal : medicine and what matters in the end / Atul Gawande. Medicine and what matters in the end. First Picador edition. New York : Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2014. New York : Picador, 2017. 287 pages ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-277) and discussion questions (pages 283-287). Introduction -- The independent self -- Things fall apart -- Dependence -- Assistance -- A better life -- Letting go -- Hard conversations -- Courage -- Epilogue. 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. 20190904. Terminal care. Critical care medicine. Aging Physiological aspects. Quality of life. Death. Terminal care. Aging physiology. Activities of Daily Living. Quality of life. Prognosis. Attitude to Death. Aged.