Reddit Reddit reviews Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

We found 13 Reddit comments about Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Medical Administration & Economics
Health Care Delivery
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending
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13 Reddit comments about Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End:

u/AnyelevNokova · 20 pointsr/breakingmom

There's a great book that I recommend left and right to people - Atul Gawande's Being Mortal. It covers a huge breadth of topics regarding aging, end of life, terminal illness, cancer, hospice/palliative care, nursing homes, death, and modern medicine.
One of the recurring issues that comes up is the struggle for many doctors to effectively communicate expectations and outcomes with patients and their families. They find it challenging to have those very necessary, but difficult, conversations that basically boil down to "you have a disease that is 99% going to kill you and there's nothing more we can realistically do to extend your life without causing more suffering."We have encouraged doctors to change healthcare from a service to a conversation -- to involve patients in their care -- and it is overall a very good thing, but this has has an unintended consequence; doctors are afraid to dispense bad news. So they beat around the bush; they say, "you have stage IV renal cell carcinoma, with mets here, here, and here. What questions do you have for me?" The patient asks, "how do we treat it?" -- the doctor says, "well, we can do chemo, radiation... there are some medications, and a few clinical trials we could see if you qualify for..." (note how, at no point, the doctor says "there is no cure; this is terminal.") Time prognoses are scary (not to mention a potential liability!), so we tell them to try to avoid them - so we don't tell the patient they are likely going to be dead less than 3 months from now. The family member interjects that they want "everything possible" done to save their loved one, accompanied by printouts of google searches and random crap they found online. The doctor entertains this, even though they know it won't do anything - again, they're afraid to tell the patient no, this random experimental treatment or drug you're requesting isn't going to save your life, and you're still going to die.
So when the patient with stage IV cancer declines and winds up in the hospital, and all signs begin to point towards impending imminent death, the family is shocked, horrified, but most of all surprised. "I didn't expect her to die so fast", posted one of my facebook acquaintances after her mother rapidly declined; they had been on the "pray the terminal cancer away" and "we're waiting to get her into an experimental treatment, if her numbers improve juuuust a little bit!" denial train.
There was a study not too long ago that found that most patients with end-stage cancer didn't evaluate themselves as terminal. We see facebook walls filled with people posting about their loved ones or even themselves - I have stage 3, stage 4 cancer, prayers, more prayers, send hope; she's a warrior, she can beat this, he's so strong and will fight! Either we are promoting a culture of delusion or doctors aren't being blunt enough with their patients and their families about the realities of these kind of illnesses.
Because you're right - ask any doctor or nurse and they'll tell you, stage 4 means say your good-byes, tie up your loose ends, go on that vacation you always wanted to but never got around to, and find a means to end your life while you still have the autonomy to do so with the least suffering.

u/SiberianGnome · 7 pointsr/personalfinance

I'd start by reading "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0805095152/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480885429&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=being+mortal+book&dpPl=1&dpID=51C9yK9VzzL&ref=plSrch

Basically you need to prioritize what matters for you when you go into your treatment. With a child at home I would think that a high probability treatment method would take precedence over finances. But if you have an aggressive form of cancer with a lower probability of curing, it sounds like you will have substantially different priorities than most Americans (and that's a good thing IMO.)

You'll want to maximize quality of life for as long as possible while allowing you to continue to support your family and spend time with your child. Your treatment plan should be based around this, rather than throwing everything you can at the cancer hoping for a miracle.

u/shatana · 3 pointsr/nursing

Not a book recommendation, but I really, really recommend watching the documentary Alive Inside. I believe it's still on Netflix? What I learned about music therapy from it has helped me connect very deeply with multiple dementia and Parkinson's patients over the years.

The late, great Oliver Sacks also stars as an expert on it, and he wrote Musicophilia, of which there are a couple of chapters that deal with music & memory. I really enjoyed reading that.

Edit: Found my booklist. Here's a really simple handbook that helps guide you in having difficult conversations with seriously ill patients and their families about the patient's condition. It's aimed primarily at doctors (it was made for oncologists originally), but many of its tenets and suggestions can be applied to any level of caregiver.

u/Kitjack · 3 pointsr/nursing

I recommend this book
http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

It is a good read and addresses this issue.

u/zealotarchaeologist · 3 pointsr/soma

I highly recommend the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, it's the best thing I've ever read on this subject.

Interestingly, I've yet to talk to anyone who left Lindwall alive. Everyone I discussed the game with thought that would be cruel, and I agree, but I'd be interested to see other perspectives.

u/ejpusa · 1 pointr/Alzheimers

Check out this book. Amazing writer. Think you’ll find it interesting.

If you don’t die a fairly painless death from ALZ, you’ll die a painful death from cancer. That’s just what the data says. I’ll take the ALZ path myself.

Eventually the decision will have to made, shut down a children’s vaccination program and divert the $$$s to ALZ research, that’s the issue coming up. What would you do?

The Atlantic Article :

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/dying-better/384626/


The book:

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0805095152?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title


“Beautifully written . . . In his newest and best book, Gawande . . . has provided us with a moving and clear-eyed look at aging and death in our society, and at the harms we do in turning it into a medical problem, rather than a human one.” ―The New York Review of Books

PS. I don’t usually say “Nazi”, you can say the German people. They were just everyday people. Could have been anyone. Just like anyone you or I know.

Thanks for the reply, always enjoy thinking about it all.

u/hbarSquared · 1 pointr/NeutralPolitics

If you want an excellent read on both the cost and the morality of excessive, interventionist end-of-life care, I can't recommend Atul Gawande's Being Mortal enough. IMO, it's one of the most important books written in the last 5 years.

u/WinterCharm · 1 pointr/offmychest

> I want to live again. I want to go out and enjoy every single minute God gives me here on Earth. I don't want to schedule my day around taking pills, or my week around when I am going to have to go in for an infusion. I am at peace with my choice and I just wish someone understood.

You should share this article with your parents: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/06/413691959/knowing-how-doctors-die-can-change-end-of-life-discussions

Here's an excerpt:

> In 2011, Murray, a retired family practice physician, shared his observations in an online article that quickly went viral. The essay, "How Doctors Die," told the world that doctors are more likely to die at home with less aggressive care than most people get at the end of their lives. That's Murray's plan, too.

And, if they still aren't convinced, have them read this: http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

In short, I think you made the right choice. Also, read both of those things yourself.

And if anyone tries to guilt you into resuming treatment, tell them they're grasping at false hopes, emotionally manipulating you, and that treatment is miserable, and you don't want to spend what little time you have left being miserable.

If there isn't a cure, there isn't a cure. Everyone's life ends anyways at some point. You have the blessing of knowing that you only have so long left. Make every second count, and tell anyone who thinks otherwise to kindly fuck off.

<3 best of luck OP.

u/ButGravityAlwaysWins · 1 pointr/PoliticalDiscussion

If anybody is interested in reading on the subject I highly recommend Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End"

https://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

But if the conversation around the ACA proves anything, if that logic goes out the door when you get an easy signed by like "death panels" and can convince a large number of Americans that the government is actually going to set up a board to decide what kind of Americans live and die.

u/reo_sam · 1 pointr/india

Not really.

Chemotherapy is horrible for some patients making them feel even worse than death.

If you can, you should read up Being Mortal. I cannot recommend it enough. It will change your perspective about death, and also about life. Review 1, 2.

More.

> our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; and that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, culture, and conversations to transform the possibilities for the last chapters of all of our lives.

u/sacca7 · 1 pointr/AgingParents

I hear you and my heart goes out to you, to all of us.

Read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande before offering to move anyone in. It's not just having another housemate. As people age, especially beyond 80, they regress in ways that aren't obvious until difficult decisions need to be made. So, Nana is cooperative and kind from a distance, but move her in and your life with your SO and family will suffer.

I love my mom, and she's easy going, but if she lived with us it would be very difficult for my husband to unwind at the end of his day and talk openly. Conversation would be rather superficial when not in the privacy of our bedroom.

Again, read that book, your public library probably has it, and good luck. I would like to hear how it goes if you have time (I know it's in the future).

u/allenahansen · 1 pointr/todayilearned

Anymore, the focus is on industrializing the hospice business, making it an adjunct of existing nursing homes, and moving as many bodie$ through the system as possible.

Which is a damned shame. Atul Gawande has a wonderful new book out that discusses end-of-life care in great and compassionate depth. Highly recommended for anyone facing these painful decisions.