On the Importance of “Being Mortal”
During the last six months, the book most often recommended to me has been Being Mortal, written by Boston surgeon (he’s more than that…) Atul Gawande. Now I too can recommend this book to others.
What is unusual about this book is that it reminds us how deeply doctors themselves are affected by the strengths and limits of their profession, while also helping everyone think more deeply about key issues of living and dying. The author is a candid, persuasive writer. Early in the book, Dr. Gawande explains:
“You become a doctor for what you imagine to be the satisfaction of the work, and that turns out to be the satisfaction of competence. It is a deep satisfaction very much like the one that a carpenter experiences in restoring a fragile antique chest or that a science teacher experiences in bringing a fifth grader to that sudden, mind-shifting recognition of what atoms are. It comes partly from being helpful to others. But it also comes from being technically skilled and able to solve difficult, intricate problems. Your competence give you a secure sense of identity. For a clinician, therefore, nothing is more threatening to who you think you are than a patient with a problem you cannot solve.
There’s no escaping the tragedy of life, which is that we are all aging from the day we are born. One may even come to understand and accept this fact. My dead and dying patients don’t haunt my dreams anymore. But that’s not the same as saying one knows how to cope with what cannot be mended. I am in a profession that has succeeded because of its ability to fix. If your problem is fixable, we know just what to do. But if it’s not? The fact that we have no adequate answers to this question is troubling and has caused callousness, inhumanity, and extraordinary suffering.
This experiment of making mortality a medical experiment is just decades old. It is young. And the evidence is it is failing….”
Pretty potent stuff, right?