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Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande Quotes

Surgeon

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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.”

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Book:Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
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“Dressing somebody is easier than letting them dress themselves. It takes less time. It's less aggravation." So unless supporting people's capabilities is made a priority, the staff ends up dressing people like they're rag dolls. Gradually, that's how everything begins to go. The tasks come to matter more than the people.”

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Book:Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
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“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.”

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Book:Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
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