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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Gawande characterize the phase of cultural development we are in, with regard to care for the sick and dying?
(a) More institutional.
(b) More spiritualized.
(c) Transitional.
(d) More medicalized.

2. How did Bill Thomas overcome the institutional inertia that might have complicated his plans to introduce animals?
(a) He overwhelmed people with big changes quickly.
(b) He talked to key opinion leaders and got buy-in.
(c) He kept his plans secret and hatched them all at once.
(d) He fired anyone who refused to go along.

3. How does Gawande characterize the hope of a cure that entices people into what he calls the multitrillion-dollar medical system?
(a) A lottery ticket.
(b) A rigged gambling table.
(c) A pretty fairy tale.
(d) A snake oil sales pitch.

4. What does Gawande say the surgeon at his hospital recommended for his father’s tumor?
(a) Waiting and watching.
(b) Immediate operation.
(c) Treatment with radiation.
(d) Palliative surgery.

5. What did Gawande do with the herbs and medicine and morsels of food he took with him into the river?
(a) Pray over them.
(b) Offer them to the dead.
(c) Mix them with his father’s ashes.
(d) Trail them after the boat.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. How does Gawande characterize the operation he ultimately performed on Jewel Douglas?

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

4. How many spoonfuls of Ganges water did Gawande drink, as part of his father’s funeral service?

5. What was Thomas’ first project when he arrived at Chase?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the cause that Gawande says Josiah Royce described as keeping people engaged in their lives?

2. How does Gawande say that end-of-life care costs affect the American medical system?

3. What are the priorities Gawande says people have, at the end of their lives, that go beyond “prolonging their lives” (155)?

4. In the metaphor of death as the enemy, which general’s philosophy does Gawande say patients should want to emulate?

5. What compromises does Gawande make, to give Jewel Douglass a “palliative operation” (240)?

6. What does Gawande say goes into a “comfort pack” (162)?

7. How does Gawande characterize the ceremony for disposing of his father’s ashes?

8. How does Gawande characterize the work that remains to be done in medicine?

9. What does Sara Monopoli’s story illustrate?

10. How does Gawande characterize his faith in his people’s religion, and how does he describe his participation in the Hindu ritual for dispersing his father’s remains?

(see the answer keys)

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