Being Mortal: A Review and Reflection

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Recommended: Ageism in the health care system

Atul Gawande, the writer of Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, is a surgeon and a professor at Harvard Medical School. This is an inspiring book that unwraps people’s mind to scrutinize and question our current practice of medicine and care. The flow and organization of the topics are structured chronologically and easy for readers to have a clear depiction of the progression of the book. He explains and elaborates his ideas and assumptions on struggles with morality, through real voices of patients and his own personal encounter. The first few topics were lighthearted, more on procedural terms such as the demographics of care in the United States and India and the evolution of care. This heightens to themes that are close to one’s heart as he uncovers the relationship amongst medicine, patient, and the family. It also deliberates on the concerns after medicine becomes impotent and society is ill-equipped for the aging population, which highlight the decisions and conversations one should or might have pertaining to death. He makes …show more content…

Even if we hold such conversations, would people be less passive, dare to seek the truth in their health and speak of what is significant in their lives? Medicine has ironically brought older adults closer to health institutions, where they see these homes as odious and see themselves as abandoned. If I must be scrupulous, it would be having to postulate concrete examples on the environment and resources for the older adults, perhaps through nationwide initiative or authorize advance medical directives compulsory. Most crucially, to instill the philosophy of assisted care in a positive light and not as alienation. With that, it could lessen the negative connotations on how the elders perceive themselves in the assisted

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