‘Being Mortal’ author on living ‘a good life all the way to the very end’

Atul Gawande appeared on CBS This Morning on September 6, 2017 to speak about the paperback release of his book Being Mortal. In it, he writes about how to start conversations around the care that patients want—and don’t want—at the end of their lives.

The book’s goal is not to help patients have a good death, “but a good life – all the way to the very end,” he said. “This isn’t about death panels. This isn’t about giving up. This is about, ‘What are you fighting for?’” For Gawande’s own critically ill father, who inspired the book, it was family dinners. When attending them was no longer physically possible, Gawande said, his father chose to receive only care to manage his pain.

Gawande, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is also a surgeon and the executive director of Ariadne Labs.

Being Mortal, first released in hardcover in 2014, was the subject of an Emmy-nominated documentary.

Watch CBS This Morning interview: Dr. Atul Gawande on what we should be asking in end-of-life care

Learn more

Making end-of-life care more humane (Harvard Chan School News)