CBR 10 BINGO Square: Backlog (Added this to my TBR list on February 12, 2013 – the day I joined Goodreads, apparently) Best for: People who enjoy good writing about medical issues. NOT for those who get squeamish reading about surgical procedures. In a nutshell: Surgeon Atul Gawande (you probably know him from Being Mortal; I think my favorite of his is the Checklist Manifesto) shares stories about his time as a surgeon, exploring the reality that surgeons are humans and make mistakes. Worth quoting: […]
All we ask is to be allowed to remain the writers of our own story
I’m a big fan of Atul Gawande’s work, easily the best I’ve read by a medical doctor. His style is effortless, and he manages to find the right balance of technical and non-technical. Being Mortal feels like his most personal work, and I loved it. While his first three books mostly covered his own experiences through surgical residency and practice, his latest explores a topic he admits up front to knowing very little about. He mentions right away that his medical training included almost nothing […]
A Better Life and a Better Death
Though I haven’t read Atul Gawande’s most famous book, Complications, I read Better a year or so ago and found it compelling and thoughtful. As a result, I was intrigued by the prospect of his most recent book, Being Mortal, about medicine and end-of-life issues, including the story of Gawande’s father’s battle with cancer. Yet, I put off reading it for a bit because a book about death and dying isn’t exactly something you eagerly jump into. However, once I saw it on the best-seller […]
Could Have Been Better
This is the third of Dr. Gawande’s books I’ve read and reviewed for Cannonball Read, and it’s probably my least favorite. However, it’s still a decent book that I’m glad I read. The book is ostensible about ‘how success is achieved in this complex and risk-filled profession,’ talking about medicine. And there are certainly many really compelling stories about medicine. But I wasn’t really able to follow any sort of coherent theme to the stories. I almost felt like I was reading a collection of interesting […]
File Under: Self Help, Business
Since my local library didn’t have Being Mortal yet, I picked up The Checklist Manifesto also by Atul Gawande, instead. It’s a short read, even shorter since I skimmed quite a few of the anecdotes regarding how to use checklists, but I did manage to pick up a few good tips for approaching projects and managing them more successfully. Gawande writes with an accessible style, which helps make what is essentially a one page outline worth pushing on through for 200+ pages. Gawande’s advice is straightforward […]
Book 52 – What Matters in the End
“A colleague once told her, Wilson said, ‘We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love.’ That remains the main problem and paradox for the frail.” The above quote sums up beautifully much of what Dr. Gawande discusses in this really lovely, interesting and motivating book. Being Mortal focuses on how modern medicine has failed us in that it can keep people alive much longer than it used to, but often at a very serious cost. His focus is primarily on the elderly, […]