Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

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Modern medicine has transformed the dangers of childbirth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the face of our inevitable aging and death, what it can do often runs counter to what it should do. Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Atul Gawande reveals the suffering this has produced. He examines the profession's limitations and failures as life draws to a close. And he shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death, but a good life - until the very end. Book jacket.