The Chautauqua-Wawasee organization located at Oakwood Resort has planned a discussion of the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Commenting on this book, Time Magazine said “This should be mandatory reading for every American”.
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should. Being Mortal reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients’ anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them. Riveting, honest, and humane, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life-all the way to the very end.
Dr. Jeffrey Brown, Medical Director of Parkview’s Home Health and Hospice organization will be participating in the discussion.
Books are available through the Evergreen system; extra copies are available for checkout at the Syracuse Public Library.
For more details see the Chautauqua-Wawasee website: www.chautauquawawasee.org or Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ChautauquaWawasee or stop by the Syracuse Library or contact Candice Brown, cbrown@chqw.org
Event details:
When: November 15, 2:00 – 3:30
Where: Oakwood Resort Inn, Conference room #1
Syracuse, Indiana
Cost: Free, open for the public
