PREMIUM FEATURE
Advanced Search Filters
Filter search results by source, date, and more with our premium search tools.
A family meeting is a procedure, and it requires no less skill than performing an operation.” One basic mistake is conceptual. To most doctors, the p… - Atul Gawande
" "A family meeting is a procedure, and it requires no less skill than performing an operation.” One basic mistake is conceptual. To most doctors, the primary purpose of a discussion about terminal illness is to determine what people want — whether they want chemo or not, whether they want to be resuscitated or not, whether they want hospice or not. We focus on laying out the facts and the options. But that’s a mistake, Block said. “A large part of the task is helping people negotiate the overwhelming anxiety — anxiety about death, anxiety about suffering, anxiety about loved ones, anxiety about finances,” she explained. “There are many worries and real terrors.” No
English
Collect this quote
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Atul A Gawande
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Atul Gawande
If to be human is to be limited, then the role of caring professions and institutions - from surgeons to nursing homes - ought to be aiding people in their struggle with those limits. Sometimes we can offer a cure, sometimes only a salve, sometimes not even that. But whatever we can offer, our interventions, and the risks and sacrifices they entail, are justified only if they serve the large aims of a person's life. When we forget that, the suffering we inflict can be barbaric. When we remember it, the good we do can be breathtaking.
It turns out that inheritance has surprisingly little influence on longevity. James Vaupel, of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, in Rostock, Germany, notes that only 3 percent of how long you’ll live, compared with the average, is explained by your parents’ longevity; by contrast, up to 90 percent of how tall you are is explained by your parents’ height. Even genetically identical twins vary widely in life span: the typical gap is more than fifteen years. If our genes explain less than we imagined, the classical wear-and-tear model may explain more than we knew.
Loading...