Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Film & Book Discussion

Join us on the first of August to discuss Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. We will watch the PBS documentary, and then follow the viewing with a discussion on both the film and the book of the same name. Books will be available at the library for those who have not read it.

Atul Gawande’s book addresses one of the troubles that modern medicine faces today:

“Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.

Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients’ anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them. And families go along with all of it.

In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Now he examines its ultimate limitations and failures–in his own practice as well as others–a life draws to a close. And he discovers how we can do better. He follows a hospice nurse on her rounds, a geriatrician in his clinic, and reformers turning nursing homes upside down. He finds people who show us how to have the hard conversations and how to ensure we never sacrifice what people really care about.

Riveting, honest, and humane, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life–all the way to the very end.”

This program is free but please register at cotuitlibrary.org/events or contact the Library.