# Being Mortal - Atul Gawande Created: 2023_07_15 21:42 Tags: [[Health]] Key Insights: - "A good life is not necessarily a long one. Our ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life to the very end." The author argues for prioritizing quality of life even at the end. - "Assisted living is an experiment, a halting step toward a more humane way of living for the fragile elderly." The book explores flaws in current elder care models and ideas for improvement. - "Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped." Courage is needed to have difficult but important conversations about end-of-life preferences. - "We've been wrong about what our job is in medicine...We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being." The field of medicine needs to expand its role beyond just prolonging life. Key Quotes: - "Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need." - "The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one's life—to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be." - "The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And, in a war that you cannot win, you don't want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation." Overall, Being Mortal makes a powerful case for rethinking and improving how we care for the elderly and approach end-of-life decisions. Medicine should aim to enhance quality and meaning of life all the way to the end. ## References -