View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who did Gawande’s father want to see in his final bout of wakefulness?
(a) Gawande’s sons.
(b) His father.
(c) Gawande.
(d) His wife.

2. What do the doctors from Uganda and the writer from South Africa say about American medical care?
(a) It is obviously wasteful.
(b) It clearly benefits the rich.
(c) It is biased against people of color and the poor.
(d) No one in their countries could afford it.

3. What does Gawande say has provided him with the most meaningful experiences as a doctor?
(a) Helping patients deal with what medicine cannot do.
(b) Helping patients deal with questions of ethics and the good life.
(c) Helping patients deal with questions of philosophy and the spirit.
(d) Helping patients deal with limitations imposed by of mortality.

4. Why does Gawande say he and his father preferred Doctor Benzel to the neurosurgeon at Gawande’s hospital?
(a) He made the better promises for the outcome of a surgery.
(b) He paid close attention to their needs.
(c) He had more experience with Gawande’s father’s type of tumor.
(d) He was more of an expert.

5. How does Gawande characterize the onset of treatment for his father’s tumor?
(a) As a tragedy that struck too early.
(b) As a punishment for not having taken better care of his father.
(c) As an opportunity to practice what he had learned to preach.
(d) As a test for what he had learned about mortality.

6. Where had Thomas worked before Chase Memorial?
(a) An ER.
(b) A urology unit.
(c) A family practice.
(d) A farm.

7. What does Gawande say Ronald Dworkin says is the heart of a meaningful life?
(a) The ability to be the author of your own story.
(b) To be free from fear.
(c) To have material stability and comfort.
(d) To be well respected by good people.

8. What does Gawande say he connected himself and his father to, by scattering the ashes in the Ganges?
(a) Mother Earth.
(b) Father Time.
(c) Their ethnic people.
(d) Something larger than themselves.

9. What was Sara Monopoli’s strategy for making treatment decisions?
(a) Most tolerable treatment.
(b) Minimal invasiveness.
(c) Aggressive management.
(d) Maximum quality of life.

10. What does Gawande say being mortal is about?
(a) Working with the constraints of biology.
(b) Being grateful for life.
(c) Transcending death.
(d) Knowing the spirit.

11. What does Gawande say his father always understood about life?
(a) That it is short and his place in the world was small.
(b) That if it is lived well, there is no mourning, only celebration.
(c) That it was a gift and he could not be upset about losing it.
(d) That it was not his to lose or grieve.

12. What is the ars moriendi?
(a) The art of dying.
(b) The art of medicine.
(c) The art of consoling.
(d) The art of teaching.

13. What does Gawande say a person is assured of, if their ashes touch the Ganges River?
(a) Eternal salvation.
(b) Reincarnation.
(c) Forgetfulness.
(d) Eternal peace.

14. How does Gawande characterize the effect of introducing animals to Chase Memorial?
(a) Terror.
(b) Hilarity.
(c) Happy confusion.
(d) Pandemonium.

15. What does Kahneman say are our two selves?
(a) Experiencing and remembering.
(b) Grieving and longing.
(c) Planning and executing.
(d) Desiring and regretting.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of Gawande’s patients showed him “how understanding the finitude of one’s time could be a gift” (209)?

2. How does Gawande characterize Jewel Douglas’ temperament in the depths of treatment?

3. How does Gawande say insurance companies respond after the Nelene Fox case found insurance companies at fault for not paying for expensive treatments?

4. What does a patient base their impression of pain on, according to researcher Daniel Kahneman?

5. By what rate did the death rate decline at Chase, after the introduction of animals?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 659 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample