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“We've been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. ” ― Atul Gawande, (p259, 'Epilogue' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685)

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 259)

“Being mortal is about the struggle to cope with the constraints of our biology, with the limits set by genes and cells and flesh and bone. Medical science has given us remarkable power to push against these limits, and the potential value of this power was a central reason I became a doctor. But again and again, I have seen the damage we in medicine do when we fail to acknowledge that such power is finite and always will be. ” ― Atul Gawande, (p259, 'Epilogue' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685)

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 259)

“Technological society has forgotten what scholars call the “dying role” and its importance to people as life approaches its end. People want to share memories, pass on wisdoms and keepsakes, settle relationships, establish their legacies, make peace with God, and ensure that those who are left behind will be okay. They want to end their stories on their own terms. This role is, observers argue, among life’s most important, for both the dying and those left behind. And if it is, the way we deny people this role, out of obtuseness and neglect, is cause for everlasting shame. Over and over, we in medicine inflict deep gouges at the end of people’s lives and then stand oblivious to the harm done. ”

p249, '8 Courage' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 249)

“I am leery of suggesting the idea that endings are controllable. No one ever really has control. Physics and biology and accident ultimately have their way in our lives. But the point is that we are not helpless either. Courage is the strength to recognize both realities. We have room to act, to shape our stories, though as time goes on it is within narrower and narrower confines. A few conclusions become clear when we understand this: that our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone’s lives.”

p243, '8 Courage' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 243)

“For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.”

p238, '8 Courage', 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 238)

“People seemed to have two different selves—an experiencing self who endures every moment equally and a remembering self who gives almost all the weight of judgment afterward to two single points in time, the worst moment and the last one. The remembering self seems to stick to the Peak-End rule even when the ending is an anomaly, Just a few minutes without pain at the end of their medical procedure dramatically reduced patients’ overall pain ratings even after they’d experienced more than half an hour of high level of pain.”

p237, '8 Courage' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 237)

"“At least two kinda of courage are required In ageing and sickness, The first is the courage to confront the reality of mortality the courage to seek out the truth of what is to be feared and what is to be hoped. Such courage ls difficult enough. We have many reasons to shrink from it. But even more daunting is the second kind of courage - the courage to act on the truth we find. The problem is that the wise course ls so frequently unclear. For a long while, I thought that this was simply because of uncertainty. When it is hard to know what will happen, it is hard to know what to do. But the challenge, I've come to see, is more fundamental than that, One has to decide whether one’s fears or one’s hopes are what should matter most. ”

p232, '8 Courage', 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685828 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 232)

“Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what ls to be feared or hoped. Wisdom is prudent strength.

p232, '8 Courage', 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685828" ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 232)

“The pressure remains all in one direction, toward doing more, because the only mistake clinicians seem to fear, is doing too little. Most have no appreciation that equally terrible mistakes are possible in the other direction—that doing too much could be no less devastating to a person’s life. ”

p220, '7 Hard Conversations ' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685828 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 220)

“This is what it means to have autonomy—you may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.”

p210, '7 Hard Conversations ' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685828 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 210)

“The Emanuels [Ezekiel and Linda] described a third type of doctor-patient relationship, which they called “interpretive.” Here the doctor’s role is to help patients determine what they want. Interpretive doctors ask, “What is most important to you? What are your worries?” Then, when they know your answers, they tell you about the red pill and the blue pill and which one would most help you achieve your priorities."

p201, '7 Hard Conversations ' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685828 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 201)

"“With this new way, in which we together try to figure out how to face mortality and preserve the fiber of a meaningful life, with its loyalties and individuality, we are plodding novices. We are going through a societal learning curve, one person at a time. And that would include me, whether as a doctor or as simply a human being.”

p193, '7 Hard Conversations ' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685828 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 193)

“The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And in a war that you cannot win, you don’t want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don’t want Custer You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knows how to fight for territory that can be won and how to surrender it when it can’t. Someone who understands that the damage is greatest if all you do is battle to the bitter end. ”

p187, '6 Letting Go' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685828 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 187)

"Dying used to be accompanied by a prescribed set of customs, Guides to ars moriendi, the art of dying, were extraordinarily popular; a medieval version published in Latin in 1415 was reprinted in more than a hundred editions across Europe. People believed death should be accepted stoically, without fear or self-pity or hope for anything more than the forgiveness of God. Reaffirming one’s faith, repenting one’s sins, and letting go of one’s worldly possessions and desires were crucial, and the guides provided families with prayers and questions for the dying in order to put them in the right frame of mind during their final hours. Last words came to hold a particular place of reverence.”

p156, '6 Letting Go' , 'Being Mortal', Profile Books, ISBN 978-1846685828 ― Atul Gawande

— Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection) (Page 156)