The seemingly easiest and most sensible rule for a doctor to follow is: Always Fight. Always look for what more you could do. (...) But our fight is… - Atul Gawande

The seemingly easiest and most sensible rule for a doctor to follow is: Always Fight. Always look for what more you could do.

I learned about a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn’t one of them. Although I was given a dry, leathery corpse to dissect in my first term, that was solely a way to learn about human anatomy. Our textbooks had almost nothing on aging or frailty or dying. How the process unfolds, how people experience the end of their lives, and how it affects those around them seemed beside the point. The way we saw it, and the way our professors saw it, the purpose of medical schooling was to teach how to save lives, not how to tend to their demise.

all human beings err, but they err frequently and in predictable, patterned ways.

People with serious illness have priorities besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys find that their top concerns include avoiding suffering, strengthening relationships with family and friends, being mentally aware, not being a burden on others, and achieving a sense that their life is complete.