Being Mortal - the Documentary

I feel like a bit of an Atul Gawande fangirl. Since reading her book Being Mortal  a year or so ago, I recommend it to everyone as a must read.  He takes the time to not only talk about patients, but also his own family and experiences with what happens when we get older and the choices to make when we are dying.

When my own father got sick, he read this book and was able to make his own notes.  The hospice says it was the best advanced directive that they had recently read, which I said was a result of reading this book.

Over the weekend I watched the PBS Documentary Being Mortal which was a good introduction to what he is trying to talk about in the book, about being honest and finding out what people value, and how they would like their life to be at the end. When is the right time to stop chasing treatments, and spend time with loved ones is a question for all of us, and it often can be difficult for doctors to have this discussion with their patients.

It is around 55 minutes, and their are a few ads popped into the documentary which is a bit annoying, but it is a very worthwhile watch.  5/5

Complications - Atul Gawande

Dear Dr Gawande,

I am becoming a super fan of yours.  Much as I think this is not as important a book as Being Mortal, for many I am sure it will be somewhat of an eye opener.  In the twenty five years I have been in the medical field, much has changed, the technology available, the skills surgeons such as yourself now have due to the tools and eduction available and most importantly I think there has been a huge shift in patient expectation.  Patients and their families expect diagnoses and answers that sometimes cannot be answered.

You do a fine job of explaining that surgery is an imperfect science.  You can have a hundred patients with the same symptoms and diagnosis, but not everybody will respond to surgery or treatment in the same way, and there can be a variety of outcomes that cannot be predicted.

Thank you for being a voice of reason, and for presenting to the public, what we in the medical fiend understand about medicine.  4/5

Movie Monday - Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

My goodness I feel a bit of a fangirl, but if there was one book I would recommend you read in 2015 it would be Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.  You can see a clip of the trailer that Frontline have made from their documentary of talking to this important author.

                                                             Source unknown

Being Mortal - Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande has written an impressive book, that looks at what really matters at the end of our life, how the inevitable decline in our bodies will happen to all of us as we age and how the changes in modern health care have changed how we approach the last parts of our life.  With changes in family structures, from a time and society that looked after the older members of our family in our homes, to them now living independently and then needing some form of care, often in nursing home or assisted living communities, it was interesting to consider the different approaches to care.

He also considers the way we deal with dying, how different approaches are used by clinicians, and how the use of hospice and palliative care can be used to help a person be comfortable and informed at the end of their care.

A sensitive and yet friendly book, I was touched by so many of the stories in this book.  The author shares stories of some of his own patients, his grandfather who died at 110 years old, and his own doctor father who faced a spinal cord tumour.

A great book to end the year on - one I will think of many times in the future I am sure.  5/5

Better- Atul Gawande

Better - Atul Gawande (2007)

Atul Gawande is a recently qualified general surgeon from the US, who has written this non fiction book which looks at ways within medicine, and in life that we can do better. Looking at vaious way medicine has changed practice, from the way the US army has changed sunglasses on soldiers which resulted in less penetrating eye injuries, to the Indian search to irradicate polio.

Dr Gawande presents an enjoyable ride to on the journey to his discoveries, filled with many personal tales he also considers some of the big issues such as medical malpractice and the amount of money spent in the last six months of life (often 80% of medical spending).

At the end he dishes oout sme great advice for medical students, at lectues he gives at medical school. One of them is to keep writing, that "by offering your reflections to an audience, even a small one, you make yourself part of the larger world. An audience is a community. The published world is a secloration of membership in that community, and also of a willingness to contribute something meaningful to it. So choose your audience. Write something". 4/5