Being Mortal Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

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Brief Summary

We are all going to die at some point, whether we like it or not. However, we have our entire lives to prepare for the end.

It is important to think honestly and clearly about what we want from our final years. We need to determine what we think is important and make sure that we make decisions early so that even if we are unable to make decisions, later on, our family knows our wishes.

As a society, we must also find a way to help improve the quality of life for the elderly. Whether this is about improving the way nursing homes operate or expanding the options for assisted living, there are ways that we as a society can work together to make our final years worth living.

About the Author

Atul Gawande is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He works at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, where he practices general and endocrine surgery. He works as a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Pubic Health and the Samuel O. Their Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is also the executive director at Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and serves as chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit that is working to decrease the number of surgery deaths. He served as CEO of Haven, a healthcare company owned by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase from 2018 to 2020. He is the author of many writings about medicine and public health, often for The New Yorker and Slate.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and political science from Stanford University in 1987. He was a Rhodes Scholar and earned an M.A in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford in 1989. He received a Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1995. He earned a Master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health in 1999.

He worked for Al Gore’s 1988 presidential campaign and served as a healthcare lieutenant during Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. He became the senior advisor for the Clinton administration’s Department of Health and Human Services. He was head of one of three committees of the Clinton Health Care Task Force.

He became a staff writer for the New Yorker in 1988. He wrote an essay for the New Yorker in 2009 that compared the health care of two towns in Texas. This showed why health care cost more in one town than the other. Corporate, profit-maximizing culture drove up costs in one town, while in the other town, low-cost high-quality care as provided by the Mayo Clinic and other efficient health systems kept the prices lower. The article had an impact on President Obama’s thinking and strengthened his resolve to fix health care for all.

Gawande gave a TED talk in 2012 on “How do we heal medicine?”, which received over 1.9 million viewers.

Topics

Science Psychology

Being Mortal Book Summary Preview

One of the things so many people struggle with is death and mortality. In Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande takes a look at society’s current approach to both dying and death. From the failures to the successes, this is a look at how to confront death in order to enjoy living.

Key Points:

Why we all need to get used to the idea that we will die eventually

There is an old saying that basically amounts to we all end up paying taxes and dying. And while we may get used to having to pay taxes, it is not as easy to accept the fact that we are mortal and we all die.

It’s important to accept the fact that we are mortal if we ever want a chance to truly enjoy our lives as we are living them. Thanks to current advances in medicine, many of us are living longer lives, which in turn is actually creating a bit of a problem as our inevitable death is seemingly dragged on.

The reality is, that we all need to find a way to embrace our own mortality and make death something that isn’t to be dreaded or even endured. While most people find themselves fearing death, as we get older we typically get more relaxed and even content with our lives. It is because of this sense of acceptance for our advancing age that we need to truly live our lives.

We have to rely on others as we get older or find ourselves dealing with diseases

Thinking about being sick and dying is unpleasant, and yet it is something that we will all be confronted with at some point in our lives.

Being independent is one of the most important values for so many people, and it is something we fight for most of our lives. However, as we get older being completely independent is not really an option.

As you get older, you must accept the fact that there are certain limitations you must live with. This also requires accepting the help of others.

While we may not want to give up on our values, there is no reason we need to, even when getting much-needed help. As we get older, our perspective on life shifts. Getting older can help us to appreciate the simple pleasures of everyday life, rather than those “exciting experiences.”

On top of appreciating the little things more, we also find our relationship with our family and friends increasing in importance.

The medical field can often fail the elderly, as they rob them of their independence

Oftentimes, when we think of “old age homes,” the image that comes to mind first is a building filled with rooms that are colorless and full of depression and an overall sense of dullness. And in many cases, this picture is actually rather accurate.

Many elderly people living in these homes are suffering from both loneliness and even boredom. They do not have a sense of purpose in their lives anymore.

In many cases, there is a...