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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Gawande say his father’s pains began?

2. What did Gawande’s mother want for her husband, when he was dying?

3. What is a pandit?

4. How does Gawande characterize the hope of a cure that entices people into what he calls the multitrillion-dollar medical system?

5. Where had Thomas worked before Chase Memorial?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Gawande say was the mistake his father made in his medical care?

2. How does Gawande say the western medical model is spreading throughout the world?

3. How does Gawande say that dealing with elderly patients changed his medical approach?

4. What was Bill Thomas’ idea for bringing more self-reliance to the residents of Chase Memorial?

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

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

7. How did Bill Thomas’ idea play out?

8. What stance does Gawande take on the concept of “assisted suicide” (243)?

9. What does Sara Monopoli’s story illustrate?

10. What does Daniel Kahneman’s research tell Gawande about painful experiences?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What are the emotions Gawande’s book makes you feel, and how do those emotions affect you? Do they make you want to take action, or avoid action? What stories do you tell yourself to protect yourself from the harder emotions in Gawande’s narrative?

Essay Topic 2

How do the problems Gawande describes in health care relate to other problems that are characteristic of American culture? Are American attitudes to health care related to attitudes about climate change? Environmentalism? Labor or environmental regulations? Pick an issue and show how the Americanness is similar or different.

Essay Topic 3

Have you or your family thought about plans or had discussions about care trajectories for the elder members of your family? What made those conversations possible, or made them impossible to have? Describe the impediments to holding these necessary conversations, and describe either how your family overcame them, or who stands in the way of having them? Why is it so hard to have these hard conversations?

(see the answer keys)

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