Atul Gawande Being Mortal

This book is written by an American surgeon and, based on Gawande’s personal stories as a doctor and son, consists of a reflection on how people perceive being mortal and how people feel about aging and dying. The book explores this from three different perspectives: how one perceives death in himself/herself, in others and, also, how medicine perceives it. The author criticizes how medicine and medical professionals understand life and death and how they play their role in it, usually striving for the extension of a patients’ lives at all costs, at the expense of palliative care, and often ignoring the final wishes of their patients, who are, after all, fragile human beings who just want to live their last days with dignity. Overall, a beautiful book.