Quotessence
Home / Authors / Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande Quotes

Surgeon

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleMedicineCareDeathDoctorsDyingIfsPatientIllnessAgingHumansKindMedicalProblemRiskTeamThinkingAffordableAutonomyChoices

Famous Atul Gawande Quotes

“I am leery of suggesting the idea that endings are controllable. No one ever really has control. Physics and biology and accident ultimately have their way in our lives. But the point is that we are not helpless either. Courage is the strength to recognize both realities. We have room to act, to shape our stories, though as time goes on it is within narrower and narrower confines. A few conclusions become clear when we understand this: that our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone’s lives.”

DeathDyingMedicineAgingIllnessPrioritiesOld AgeAutonomy
Book:Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Create image

“If we shift as we age toward appreciating everyday pleasures and relationships rather than toward achieving, having, and getting, and if we find this more fulfilling, then why do we take so long to do it? Why do we wait until we’re old? The common view was that these lessons are hard to learn. Living is a kind of skill. The calm and wisdom of old age are achieved over time.”

WisdomLife LessonsRelationshipsLearningAgingOld AgeFulfilmentPleasures
Book:Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Create image

“The terror of sickness and old age is not merely the terror of the losses one is forced to endure, but also the terror of the isolation. As people become aware of the finitude of their life, they do not ask for much. They do not seek more riches. They do not seek more power. They ask only to be permitted, insofar as possible, to keep sharing the story of their life in the world - to make choices and sustain connections to others according to their own priorities. In modern society we have come to assume that debility and dependence rule out such autonomy.”

ChoicesAgingAutonomySocial Issues
Book:Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Create image

“I talked to over two hundred patients and family members about their experiences with aging, serious illnesses, and the big unfixables. But I also spoke with scores of physicians, and especially geriatricians, palliative care doctors, hospice nurses, and nursing home workers. The biggest thing I found was that when these clinicians were at their best, they were recognizing that people had priorities besides merely living longer. The most important and reliable way that we can understand what people's priorities are, besides just living longer, is to simply ask. And we don't ask.”

PeopleImportantHomeCareSeriousAgingPatientIllnessPrioritiesNurseNursing
Author:Atul Gawande
Create image