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Being Mortal

Medicine and What Matters in the End
bibliotechnocrat
Dec 07, 2016bibliotechnocrat rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This beautifully articulate, thoughtful book is a must read for pretty much everyone. There is lots of research here, but Gawande uses personal, truly human (in the Sacksian sense), examples to illustrate this philosophical approach to end-of-life. These examples offer a perverse kind of hope - hope that old age won't just be all bleakness and dire nursing homes. We can make choices that stack the odds in our favour of having quality of life even as the end nears. But we can't make good choices without thinking about the outcomes, about death, about what gives our lives meaning. This book is a great place to start that thought process.