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Cargando... Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (edición 2017)por Atul Gawande (Autor)
Información de la obraBeing Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End por Atul Gawande
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. An important book, but gut wrenching to read. I wonder how many important conversations with loved ones will be started by people who read it. How much are you willing to suffer now for a chance at more time? How do you choose between options that are all terrifying? Who can you count on to decide for you when you can't decide for yourself? I hope all med students read it. One of the few light moments for me was how much doctors don't want to treat "Old Crocks" as we oldsters are known. I'm going to make a real effort not to seem vague and cranky next time I talk to a physician. Several years ago, when my husband and I spelled out our medical directives, I emphatically voiced to him that, if I became unable to communicate or move, I needed to have 2 conditions. 1. I needed to be near a window that opened to a cool breeze. 2. I needed to have a view of trees. This books helps us understand why there is so so much more that needs to be included in that conversation. If we are indeed the authors of our own story, we need to spend time and effort to craft the final chapter now. There won't be any opportunity for postscripts. I give it five stars despite the book having some shortcomings. For example: 1) The author makes it sound far too likely that people know what makes them happy. (If I had a year/month/week/day to live, I have no idea what I'd want to do. Am I unusual?) 2) Not sure how to put this into practice given that: - everyone's case is so different, - you don't have a lot of opportunities to try these ideas out, - and our knowledge is so incomplete. 3) As the author explains, despite all his knowledge of this material and that both he and father were medical doctors, he still made mistakes when it came to his father. 4) Lastly, I'd have liked the author to talk more about doctor-assisted suicide options. The little he did cover was incomplete and arguable. Consider this passage (hardcopy, p245) "...by 2012, one in 35 Dutch people sought [legal] assisted suicide at their death is not a measure of success. It is a measure of failure." The author doesn't explain why it's a measure of failure. Later, he seems to imply the # is too high. But his rhetoric is just too vague and I'm left thinking the # is much too low. In any case, a raw number like that is useless. What we really need to know is the ratio of people who had *the opportunity* for assisted suicide. So the ratio shouldn't take into account, for example, people who were hit by a truck and died instantly. Still, it's a great read.
His new book, “Being Mortal,” is a personal meditation on how we can better live with age-related frailty, serious illness and approaching death. It is also a call for a change in the philosophy of health care. Gawande writes that members of the medical profession, himself included, have been wrong about what their job is. Rather than ensuring health and survival, it is “to enable well-being.” PremiosDistincionesListas de sobresalientes
La medicina ha triunfado en nuestro tiempo y ha convertido los terribles peligros del parto, de las heridas y las enfermedades en problemas manejables. Pero cuando se trata de las realidades inevitables del envejecimiento y la muerte, lo que hace la medicina es, a menudo, lo contrario de lo que debería hacer. Atul Gawande, cirujano en ejercicio, pasa revista a las limitaciones e incapacidades de la medicina cuando se avecina la muerte. Y descubre cómo se pueden hacer mejor las cosas. «Creemos que la medicina consiste en garantizar la salud y la supervivencia. Pero en realidad, es mucho más que eso. Porque quienes sufren una enfermedad grave tienen otras prioridades, al margen de prolongar su vida. Entre sus principales preocupaciones figuran evitar el sufrimiento, estrechar los lazos con sus familiares y amigos, estar mentalmente conscientes, no ser una carga para los demás y llegar a tener la sensación de que su vida está completa. La gente quiere compartir sus recuerdos, transmitir su sabiduría y sus objetos personales, arreglar las relaciones, establecer sus legados y asegurarse de que las personas que deja atrás van a estar bien. Nuestro sistema de atención sanitaria tecnológica ha fracasado totalmente a la hora de satisfacer esas necesidades.» No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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The book talks about death with dignity. What makes life worth living when your body is at the edge of failure? How much medicine is too much? How can we do the right thing to make care for the elderly better in assisted living homes?
I read this book a week after my Mother passed away. I feel comforted by the book because it supports the decisions that were made at the very end of her life but it makes me feel terrible about my own lack of interest in her life while she was living in assisted living.
Very readable despite the subject matter. ( )