-
Being Mortal
- Medicine and What Matters in the End
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $18.89
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 36, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
-
Really good, but not as good as...
- By Anon E Mouse on 02-21-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
Complications
- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad.
-
-
FALLIBILITY, MYSTERY AND UNCERTAINTY
- By AnnH on 10-04-20
By: Atul Gawande
-
Better
- A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. In this book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable.
-
-
Fascinating and Well Read
- By L. M. Roberts on 05-23-10
By: Atul Gawande
-
The Checklist Manifesto
- How to Get Things Right
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies - neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist.
-
-
Riveting!
- By Tad Davis on 01-11-10
By: Atul Gawande
-
The House of God
- By: Samuel Shem
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative journey that takes us into the lives of Roy Basch and five of his fellow interns at the most renowned teaching hospital in the country.
-
-
First time I started it I hated it...
- By Tamara T. on 01-20-16
By: Samuel Shem
-
A Beginner's Guide to the End
- Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death
- By: Dr. BJ Miller, Shoshana Berger
- Narrated by: BJ Miller, Shoshana Berger
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first-ever practical, compassionate, and comprehensive guide to dying - and living fully until you do.
-
-
Essential reading wiithout exception
- By Daniel J. DiBona on 08-24-19
By: Dr. BJ Miller, and others
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 36, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
-
Really good, but not as good as...
- By Anon E Mouse on 02-21-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
Complications
- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad.
-
-
FALLIBILITY, MYSTERY AND UNCERTAINTY
- By AnnH on 10-04-20
By: Atul Gawande
-
Better
- A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. In this book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable.
-
-
Fascinating and Well Read
- By L. M. Roberts on 05-23-10
By: Atul Gawande
-
The Checklist Manifesto
- How to Get Things Right
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies - neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist.
-
-
Riveting!
- By Tad Davis on 01-11-10
By: Atul Gawande
-
The House of God
- By: Samuel Shem
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative journey that takes us into the lives of Roy Basch and five of his fellow interns at the most renowned teaching hospital in the country.
-
-
First time I started it I hated it...
- By Tamara T. on 01-20-16
By: Samuel Shem
-
A Beginner's Guide to the End
- Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death
- By: Dr. BJ Miller, Shoshana Berger
- Narrated by: BJ Miller, Shoshana Berger
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first-ever practical, compassionate, and comprehensive guide to dying - and living fully until you do.
-
-
Essential reading wiithout exception
- By Daniel J. DiBona on 08-24-19
By: Dr. BJ Miller, and others
-
Atlas of the Heart
- Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience
- By: Brené Brown
- Narrated by: Brené Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances - a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.
-
-
Perfect
- By Mandy on 02-16-22
By: Brené Brown
-
That Good Night
- Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour
- By: Sunita Puri
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani, Sunita Puri
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the American-born daughter of immigrants, Dr. Sunita Puri knew from a young age that the gulf between her parents' experiences and her own was impossible to bridge, save for two elements: medicine and spirituality. Interweaving evocative stories of Puri's family and the patients she cares for, That Good Night is a stunning meditation on impermanence and the role of medicine in helping us to live and die well, arming listeners with information that will transform how we communicate with our doctors about what matters most to us.
-
-
Never needed 1.25x more... GREAT BOOK THOUGH!
- By Viejo Mzungu on 04-30-19
By: Sunita Puri
-
Stepping-Stones
- Following a Pathway to the End of Life
- By: Ellie Atherton
- Narrated by: Ellie Atherton
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stepping-Stones is a compilation of heartfelt stories of courage, love, and letting go, taken from the journal pages of a hospice caregiver who spent two decades at the bedside of dying patients. The book encompasses end-of-life care, quality of life, patient autonomy, and spiritual diversity in a compassionate and thought-provoking way. A moving and gentle account of what we all must one day face.
By: Ellie Atherton
-
How We Die
- Reflections on Life's Final Chapter
- By: Sherwin B. Nuland
- Narrated by: Sherwin B. Nuland
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is a vast literature on death and dying, but there are few reliable accounts of the ways in which we die. The intimate account of how various diseases take away life, offered in How We Die, is not meant to prompt horror or terror but to demythologize the process of dying, to help us rid ourselves of that fear of the terra incognita.
-
-
Rip-off
- By T. McG. on 03-07-14
-
When Death Becomes Life
- Notes from a Transplant Surgeon
- By: Joshua D. Mezrich
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Joshua Mezrich creates life from loss, transplanting organs from one body to another. In this intimate, profoundly moving work, he illuminates the extraordinary field of transplantation that enables this kind of miracle to happen every day.
-
-
Memoir and history, beautifully written
- By Bonny on 01-22-19
-
Farewell: Vital End-of-Life Questions with Candid Answers from a Leading Palliative and Hospice Physician
- By: Edward Creagan MD, Sandra Wendel
- Narrated by: Benjamin McLean
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How long am I going to live? Who will be with me when I die? Will my family forgive me? Will I have pain? These are among the 31 vital end-of-life questions patients and their families ask. This audiobook is about navigating those last days, at the bedside, and saying farewell with hope, love, and compassion. Dr. Edward Creagan provides the reassuring answers patients and families deserve. He has dedicated his life to death. For over 40 winters at the Mayo Clinic he has been at the bedside with more than 40,000 patient encounters in the last stages of their lives on this Earth.
-
-
Everyone should read this book
- By Suzan on 10-15-18
By: Edward Creagan MD, and others
-
Everything Happens for a Reason
- And Other Lies I've Loved
- By: Kate Bowler
- Narrated by: Kate Bowler
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God's disapproval. At 35, everything in her life seems to point toward "blessing". She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.
-
-
Please give me back the lost hours of my life!
- By Charles on 03-24-19
By: Kate Bowler
-
In Shock
- My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope
- By: Dr. Rana Awdish
- Narrated by: Dr. Rana Awdish, Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Shock is a riveting first-hand account from a young critical care physician, who in the passage of a moment is transfigured into a dying patient. This transposition, coincidentally timed at the end of her medical training, instantly lays bare the vast chasm between the conventional practice of medicine and the stark reality of the prostrate patient.
-
-
Read this book!
- By CT on 11-08-17
By: Dr. Rana Awdish
-
My Stroke of Insight
- By: Jill Bolte Taylor
- Narrated by: Jill Bolte Taylor
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world.
-
-
The Why of the Review
- By Larry N. on 06-14-12
-
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
- By: Rebecca Skloot
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects.
-
-
Many stories in one
- By Ryan on 04-14-12
By: Rebecca Skloot
-
A 20-minute Summary of Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
- By: Instaread Summaries
- Narrated by: Jason P. Hilton
- Length: 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gawande grew up in Ohio. His parents were immigrants from India and both were doctors. His grandparents stayed in India, and there were few older people in his neighborhood, so he had little experience with aging or death until he met his wife's grandmother, Alice Hobson. Hobson was 77 and living on her own in Virginia. She was a spirited widow who fixed her own plumbing and volunteered with Meals on Wheels.
-
-
Helpful
- By j c on 11-21-15
-
When the Air Hits Your Brain
- Tales from Neurosurgery
- By: Frank T Vertosick Jr. MD
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.
-
-
Finished in 1 and 1/2 days
- By Andrew on 04-15-17
Publisher's Summary
Number one New York Times best seller
In Being Mortal, best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit.
Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.
Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.
Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life - all the way to the very end.
Featured Article: 55+ Quotes for Whenever You Need a Little Encouragement
We all have bad days and dry spells. We all experience moments of disappointment, sadness, and self-doubt. And occasionally, we all need an encouraging word—or several—to lift our spirits, boost our confidence, and fill us with hope. Straight from the works of best-selling and widely admired authors, here's a collection of positive and reassuring words you can turn to anytime you're in need of support.
More from the same
What listeners say about Being Mortal
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeffrey
- 10-13-14
Required Reading!
Yes, this book should be required reading for any medical professional of any kind who may ever have to help any patient make good decisions for themselves and their families against terminal or very debilitating illness. It should otherwise be read by well, anyone. We are all going to die. We either need to know what expectations to give those around us for those end times, either family or medical professionals or we need to know how best to guide our loved ones through the process of the end of their lives, because it will happen for all of us. Past that, this is a remarkably entertaining read. Oh, the parts about the history of nursing homes and assisted living made me yawn, but the rest had me spell bound. Dr. Gawnde's accounting of his own father's illness and death left me awash in emotion and even tears. The narration was perfect.
68 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jan
- 02-23-15
Definative book regarding end of life choices...
What an interesting and clear overview of aging and end of life issues. Gawande covers the process of aging and end of life, what fragile elderly means, history and trends of their care, how other cultures do it, case studies, his own choices with his father and... the best discussion of these issues I have ever read. My MD son enjoyed the information as well.
Rather than provide what he thinks is the "right" way to face EOL issues, Gawande gives us questions to ask the individual to help them determine their "right" way. He encourages us to have the hard conversations in advance so that an individual's wishes can be respected. Excellent book for healthcare personnel, families and aging adults.
I adored "One doctor" by Brendan Reilly and some of the content is similar... even if you have read Reilly, I still feel this book is well worth reading.
29 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KP
- 09-02-15
An Important Topic!
What an incredible book! I really think everyone should read it. I wouldn’t have picked it up if it weren’t a book club choice, but I’m so grateful now that I read it. It’s about a “difficult” topic - end of life issues and quality of life at that time – but the book itself is not difficult to read at all and is, in fact, very interesting. Atul Gawande handles the topic beautifully.
He explains, basically, how medicine needs to focus more on a patient’s wishes at the end of his/her life and not the family’s fears or wishes for the patient. Sometimes families want to go to extraordinary lengths to protect and prolong life, while the patient is really not willing or even physically capable of withstanding the treatments that the family wants to subject them to in the name of love. Sometimes, time has run out, and quality of life is the most important thing at this point. These are certainly tough decisions.
Gawande says that doctors are not really trained to talk to patients about dying. They are trained to try and CURE at any costs. The easy part is talking about all the treatments and drugs that can be used. The hard part is talking about and dealing with a realistic timeline and quality of life. Accepting that life can be shorter than we want can be extremely difficult! Gawande holds out hope that doctors might eventually be better trained to talk to patients about these issues.
Other topics relating to end of life issues are covered as well. There is a fascinating section on assisted living and various newer models which, again, hold out hope for the future in this area.
I was trying to remember the basic questions Gawande asks a person who has a terminal diagnosis. The website NextAvenue had the list for me:
“ It’s really a series of questions that we need to be comfortable asking one another. It needs to be normal to ask these questions, especially when someone is faced with a serious illness, and especially when we know that we’re aging and becoming frail.
We need to know:
1. What is your understanding of where you are and of your illness?
2. What are your fears or worries for the future?
3. What are your goals and priorities?
4. What outcomes are unacceptable to you? What are you willing to sacrifice and what not?
And later,
5. What would a good day look like?
Asking these allows everybody to understand what the goal really is — what are you really fighting for? It’s for a life that contains certain things.”
I also learned that there is a PBS Frontline video of Dr. Gawande and his work. I’m watching it now. It is perhaps even more powerful than just reading about his work. In any case, this book has opened a dialog for doctors, patients, and readers about needed changes in an important area!
25 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daniela
- 01-07-15
You must read this book
Because you - like me - are going to die one day. Because maybe you - and maybe I too - will become one day old and frail.
Because maybe you too - like me - have an old parent to care for. Maybe you too - like me - have lost a parent to a terminal illness.
And we have a lot of doubts, and hopes, and fears. This author helps us a bit, with his compassionate interest for unpleasant and important questions that concern us all.
Don't miss this book, it's important.
22 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- George
- 11-02-14
A Walk through the Valley of the Shadow
A masterpiece of medical journalism. It is not an easy listen. Parts are unbearably sad. Contemplation of one's mortality in preparation for the inevitable, is something that most of us would just as soon put off thinking about until close to the end. This book is most recommended for those confronting life threatening illness, and for those with loved ones or family members doing so. It is also for those interested in first rate writing regardless of topic. This is that rare work that addresses life's most painful subjects with utmost lucidity, objectivity and sensitivity. It is a book that you come away from feeling as though you are, for reading it, better prepared to cope with the approaching end of life. It makes you feel as though you are better equipped to support loved ones. It is a masterful critique of contemporary medical practice and its approach to aging and dying. It offers a new vision of what medicine can and should offer the aged and the terminally ill. The patient narratives are gripping and yet painful to read and to contemplate. What would you do in similar circumstances? The narration is also first class.
77 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Reatta
- 11-19-19
scathing review of nursing homes
As a nursing home employee who read this book in the hopes of finding help in ways to transition the people I work for into palliative care and hospice and help they and their families cope with what it means when life cannot go on... this was crushing. It will be forever burned in my ears when he says... why haven't we burned these place to the ground... I believe there is some clear misunderstanding to think that there is no one who is in need of these facilities. I should have checked when this was written. Maybe its dated. I hope it is dated. Not everyone has the family support or financial support to live out their days in the way he expects. Nursing homes are not evil. They may be far from perfect but parts of this book were soul crushing to think that the caring I do for humans in these situations every day is viewed this way. Overall I liked and agreed with most of his beliefs. I did learn ways to have the hard conversations that I value. But the utter hatred of nursing homes was disheartening and wrong.
36 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Molly-o
- 01-28-15
A Basic
I started to write that anybody over 50 ought to read this book, but that isn't true - everybody ought to read this book and wrestle with the idea of the end of life either for ourselves or our parents. Gawande is a superb researcher, a clear writer and he never loses the reader as he educates us about the american way of the end of life. A must read.
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sharon
- 12-26-15
Honest look at aging in America
Any additional comments?
I have been an RN for 30 years and have watched the decline of our care for the elderly. This book is a must read for everyone. Families and the medical community needs to take a second look at how we care for the people who have made our lives possible. It is an honest and compassionate evaluation of long term care I gave a copy of this book to everyone for Christmas.
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adam Shields
- 01-22-15
Everyone should read this
I will update later but I think everyone should read this book. It should also be a standard textbook for pastors, chaplains, and social workers. Death is inevitable. We need to learn how to do it better.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Wayne
- 06-29-20
Worthwhile book about dying
BEING MORTAL is a best selling book by a top surgeon about dying from the perspective of those dying, their loved ones, and medical professionals. It is well written and well narrated. The book contains excellent advice for those facing earlier than expected death from terminal diseases as well as those dying from the maladies of old age. Being Mortal was published in 2014 but remains topical today. I very highly recommend it.
7 people found this helpful