Being Mortal
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End is a 2014 non-fiction book by American surgeon Atul Gawande. The book addresses end-of-life care, hospice care, and also contains Gawande's reflections and personal stories. He suggests that medical care should focus on well-being rather than survival. Being Mortal has won awards, appeared on lists of best books, and been featured in a documentary.
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56recommend
87mentions
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2014–2026years
78% recommend22% neutral
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What Hacker News says
- I really recommend the book "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande. It helped me process the drawn out and unpleasant death of my grandfather and look at end of life care in a different light. There's an important difference between extending life and providing quality of life that a lot of patients and doctors both misunderstand.
The book is written from the author's own experience as a doctor but also includes his experience with his own father's death from cancer.
- Complications and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Made me appreciate modern medicine more. One other l book that shifted my thinking completely about AI and how far we are from AGI: A Brief History Of Intelligence by Max Bennett. Evolution is a heck of an algorithm.
Also read Apple In China. Was pretty interesting to realize how much Apple (and China) are what they are because of how much they poured into each other
- This is a misconception—research has found that people entering hospice often live longer than those who do not:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088539240...
There are many who will raise their hands with anecdotal counters to this, but I think much of that is borne from misunderstandings about end of life generally, which is a charged and difficult topic lots of people would rather not learn more about.
I highly recommend the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande for anyone who wants to explore the topic further—or really for anyone who has loved ones at all!
- +1 on this. I did my thesis on Glioblastoma-related imaging stuff [1]. The state of the art at the time (~2016) was that, realistically, none of the current treatments were "great", unfortunately. In short, you have 1) surgery, 2) chemotherapy, 3) radiation. Those treatments did extend survival in studies, but the overall survival of Glioblastoma patients was (tragically) still very bad at 12-24 months, and none of those therapy options were a cure.
As a side note, I recommend the book "Being Mortal" from Atul Gawande. The TLDR here is that our healthcare systems tend to overtreat patients, especially those with cancer who actually have a rather bleak prognosis, because it's easier for a physician to simply order all treatments and tell the patient "all good here, good luck" instead of taking the time to sit down and have a (long) conversation about the bleak prognosis and which options are actually still worth it. By "worth it" I mean that there are trade-offs to each treatment option, and it takes some very careful weighing whether each one provides a net benefit for your friend's individual situation. E.g. surgery might extend survival by X months, but might also create, worst case, new disabilities. So now you're faced with the very difficult decision of whether to potentially live for a shorter time with less disabilities, or for a longer time with more. There's no perfect answer, but having this sort of discussion is a good step which many patients unfortunately never take. I think this is a failure in our healthcare systems and maybe in the education of physicians.
Now, if I personally had a Glioblastoma, on top of the standard of care (surgery probably makes sense etc.), I think the ketogenic diet would currently be my best shot. Yeah, sure.. it's mostly only case reports so essentially anecdotal evidence, but it does look promising.
Good luck for your friend!
[1] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tinu7tYAAAAJ&hl=en
- Read "Being Mortal" and you might come around to a very different viewpoint.
- Regular reminder to read Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande. It offers a detailed and sometimes shocking look into the end of life/palliative care system in the country and show just how broken the incentives are industry-wide.
