TY  - BOOK
AU  - Gawande,Atul
TI  - Being mortal: medicine and what matters in the end 
SN  - 0805095152 (hardcover)
PY  - 2014///
CY  - New York
PB  - Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Company
KW  - Aging
KW  - Physiological aspects
KW  - Critical care medicine
KW  - Quality of life
KW  - Terminal care
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-277); Activities of daily living --; Things fall apart --; Dependence --; Assistance --; A; better life --; Letting go --; Hard conversations --; Courage
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
ER  -