
Being Mortal
Medicine and What Matters in the End
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Narrated by:
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Robert Petkoff
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By:
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Atul Gawande
About this listen
Number one New York Times best seller
In Being Mortal, best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit.
Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.
Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.
Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life - all the way to the very end.
©2014 Atul Gawande (P)2014 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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The Bright Hour
- A Memoir of Living and Dying
- By: Nina Riggs
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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An exquisite memoir about how to live - and love - every day with "death in the room", from poet Nina Riggs, mother of two young sons and the direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the tradition of When Breath Becomes Air.
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Awe inspiring legacy of A Brave Young Woman.
- By Julia on 06-18-17
By: Nina Riggs
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Knocking on Heaven's Door
- The Path to a Better Way of Death
- By: Katy Butler
- Narrated by: Katy Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Like so many of us, award-winning writer Katy Butler always assumed her aging parents would experience healthy, active retirements before dying peacefully at home. Then her father suffered a stroke that left him incapable of easily finishing a sentence or showering without assistance. Her mother was thrust into full-time caregiving, and Katy became one of the 24 million Americans who help care for aging parents. In an effort to correct a minor and non - life threatening heart arrhythmia, doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker.
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A better way to narrate a book about death?
- By MAUREEN on 10-21-13
By: Katy Butler
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Caring for the Dying
- The Doula Approach to a Meaningful Death
- By: Henry Fersko-Weiss LCSW
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Caring for the Dying describes a whole new way to approach death and dying. It explores how the dying and their families can bring deep meaning and great comfort to the care given at the end of a life. Created by Henry Fersko-Weiss, the end-of-life doula model is adapted from the work of birth doulas and helps the dying to find meaning in their life, express that meaning in powerful and beautiful legacies, and plan for the final days.
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Good; Narrator a little too "much"
- By Wyatt on 04-18-18
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The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
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Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
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Complications
- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: William David Griffith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Abridged
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Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This book is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human.
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It's about time...
- By T.K. on 05-31-03
By: Atul Gawande
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The Power of You
- How to Live Your Authentic, Exciting, Joy-Filled Life Now!
- By: Chris Michaels
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Practical, motivating, and inspiring ways to unleash your potential - from one of today’s most exciting spiritual teachers! You are a masterpiece. You have everything you need right now to create your life exactly as you want it to be. Successful people will often say that when they’re at their peak performance level, they feel a sense of some other presence with them - something beyond themselves. That other presence seems bigger than their own talent or personality. The Power of You guides listeners in discovering the other presence that resides within all of us.
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Way to start my year off
- By Torri C on 01-18-23
By: Chris Michaels
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What Doctors Feel
- How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine
- By: Danielle Ofri MD
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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While much has been written about the minds and methods of the medical professionals who save our lives, precious little has been said about their emotions. Physicians are assumed to be objective, rational beings, easily able to detach as they guide patients and families through some of life’s most challenging moments. But understanding doctors’ emotional responses to the life-and-death dramas of everyday practice can make all the difference on giving and getting the best medical care.
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Book resonates with outpatient internist
- By Juli W. on 09-19-22
By: Danielle Ofri MD
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Doctored
- The Disillusionment of an American Physician
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Hoping for the stability he needs to start a family, Sandeep Jauhar, an attending cardiologist, accepts a position at a massive teaching hospital on the outskirts of Queens. With a decade's worth of elite medical training behind him, he is eager to settle down and reap the rewards of countless sleepless nights. Instead, he is confronted with sobering truths. Doctors' morale is low and getting lower.
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Frank, inside perspective on the follies of unintended consequences in medical reform
- By JW on 02-25-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
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The House of God
- By: Samuel Shem
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative journey that takes us into the lives of Roy Basch and five of his fellow interns at the most renowned teaching hospital in the country.
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First time I started it I hated it...
- By Tamara T. on 01-20-16
By: Samuel Shem
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Every Patient Tells a Story
- Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis
- By: Lisa Sanders
- Narrated by: Lisa Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis.
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Make sure this is what you think!
- By Ronda on 05-11-12
By: Lisa Sanders
What listeners say about Being Mortal
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- Lauren
- 09-21-17
Changed my knowledge and perspective as a young adult
This book helped me cope during my grandfather’s decline in health. I experienced a roller coaster of emotions- I cried, I was angry, I learned something and felt empowered. As a young adult who had a really hard time seeing aging and death from the perspective of a caretaker and an elderly person, this book made me realize how precious and complicated end of life care is. I feel better equipped to support my grandfather and my family in making the right decisions during this difficult time.
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3 people found this helpful
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- HT
- 01-05-19
Helpful and Important
Interesting, helpful perspective on a life passage we all must take and too often put off thinking about .
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kathleen
- 10-29-15
A book relevant for all of us. We only are born once and only die once. I should be done with caring respectful support.
As a nurse for over 40 years, as a midwife for over half that time and a daughter of parents faced with chronic debilitating diseases, I found this book enormously thought provoking. The idea of courageous conversation is meaningful on so many levels. I encourage everyone to read this book and discuss the content with family, coworkers and healthcare providers.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Marlav9
- 03-26-17
Read this first!
If you could sum up Being Mortal in three words, what would they be?
What really matters?
What did you like best about this story?
The information in this book had a huge impact on how I view living and dying. I just lost my mom last month and realizing that her death was peaceful and as she wanted it has brought me comfort while missing her terribly. I realize now that having tough conversations before it's too late can make everyone's life better during and after losing someone.
Which character – as performed by Robert Petkoff – was your favorite?
The narrator did an excellent job. I could listen to his voice again for any book.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
You will have moments of a little chuckle but the subject matter makes you think throughout the book. You will probably cry---it is about dying.
Any additional comments?
I have already started reading The checklist Manifesto by Dr. Gawande. Brilliant, brilliant man.
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2 people found this helpful
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- mary
- 02-19-15
The truth that we avoid hearing
Well done but difficult to listen to as we realize we may or may not age or die well. This book brings an awareness that begs each of us to make choices that matter in daily living
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-29-16
Important Read for Everyone that is Human
Atul recommends important questions that help guide our end of life decisions. Very hard stuff, but vital.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kittykatarina
- 07-23-20
We will all have our ending...
How we choose to face it will be the measure of courage. Just finished this audiobook. Sure, it's something none of us wants to think about, but what an amazing framework for addressing the hard stuff. I wish I had read it before having to experience the difficult end to my mom's life journey; I think it would have helped us better navigate the inevitabilities. Highly recommended reading/listening for all of us, and it's never too late to learn a better way for the impending end for ourselves and our loved ones.
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2 people found this helpful
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- William
- 06-12-15
Plan ahead
The time to start thinking about death and dying is now, before one gets sick. The author, a surgeon, writes of his own experiences with death in his patients and families after starting with a hood review of growing old in America today. Sometimes it reads like a confession of how he could have handled patients' last days better. He concludes with an endorsement of palliative care and hospice. Dying on a ventilator in the ICU may be common, but there are better ways to meet one's end. If you gave sick lived ones, read this book.
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- anonymous
- 07-23-20
Insightful Book
Book changed my view of many aspects of end of life care including hospice/palliative care, the role of ICUs, how to make nursing homes less depressing and what makes a life worth living when the end is in sight. Most of all for me, this book proves that the miracles of modern medicine are limited and that it is essential we understand and respect these limitations. As an ICU nurse in training, it will undoubtedly shape how I view my career going forward.
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- Daniel Parr
- 09-16-20
Amazing!!!
I recommend this book to anyone and everyone!! I’m a nurse and have dealt with aging and death for lice over 15 years, but I’ve never experienced it like this before. Absolutely a must read!
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1 person found this helpful