Being Mortal Summary
Atul Gawande

Being Mortal Overview

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande is a nonfiction book about getting old and dying in America. Gawande contrasts his grandfather’s experience as an elderly man in India, who was surrounded by his family right up to the end, with an American system in which elderly patients are treated as medical problems for doctors to solve, instead of individuals who want to preserve their independence, and make decisions about their care and quality of life. The major themes of the book are self-determination in dying, compassion for people making difficult decisions, and the problems in our medical system, which inflicts needless suffering on patients, when doctors treat them as medical problems, not humans having meaningful experiences.