Book Blogger Hop gives bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. It is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. Here is the question for this week: May 16th - 22nd - What are some of your favorite books to re-read? (This question was submitted by Nicole, whose blog cannot be accessed.) I'm re-reading this one right now:
In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Atul Gawande tackles the challenge of how medicine can not only improve life, but also the process of its ending. Medicine has transformed 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. He 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. This book asserts that medicine can comfort us and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life, but also a good end.
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| This quote is from page 259. |
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