TY - BOOK AU - Gawande,Atul TI - Being mortal: medicine and what matters in the end SN - 9780805095159 AV - R726.8 .G39 2014 U1 - 362.17/5 23 PY - 2014/// CY - New York PB - Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company KW - Terminal care KW - Critical care medicine KW - Aging KW - Physiological aspects KW - Quality of life KW - Death KW - Terminal Care KW - physiology KW - Activities of Daily Living KW - Quality of Life KW - Prognosis KW - Attitude to Death KW - Aged KW - SOCIAL SCIENCE KW - Death & Dying KW - bisacsh KW - cct KW - fast KW - sears KW - Conduct of life KW - Elderly KW - Attitude (Psychology) KW - Diagnosis KW - Book N1 - Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-277); Introduction -- The independent self -- Things fall apart -- Dependence -- Assistance -- A better life -- Letting go -- Hard conversations -- Courage -- Epilogue N2 - 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 UR - http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.12/366197 UR - http://books.google.com/books?isbn=9780805095159 UR - http://iplstaff.blogspot.com/2015/01/being-mortal-medicine-and-what-matters.html UR - http://www.henryholt.com ER -