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Reviews tagging 'Ableism'
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
4 reviews
applesaucecreachur's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Some books come at just the right time, and this one is at an unfair advantage: To those living in the modern-day United States, this message will always be necessary.
I won't deny that, despite the litany of gathered stories and devoted editors and researchers that this book employed, the ultimate message still comes from the perspective of one male medical doctor. He offered allowances for capitalist structures including insurance systems in how he references the financial cost of medical care while dying. The basis of this book refers to disability as an unfortunate reality to be overcome at best, and at worst, a fate worse than death; while the message is about the end of life, I interpreted this as not a message that disability is merely another facet of life.
Still, I believe that Dr. Gawande and his team's tireless work paid off in Being Mortal. Gawande calls out modern medicine and its practitioners for morphing death into a demon to be battled til the bitter end (and oftentimes, beyond), rather than as something to be accepted for the sake of the dying and their beloveds. While he offers guiding principles, everyone's experience with and therefore their discussions about death are different, and that is the point. Patients are people and they contain multitudes. Our love for our people must keep their humanness, and not their treatment regimen, at the forefront.
I won't deny that, despite the litany of gathered stories and devoted editors and researchers that this book employed, the ultimate message still comes from the perspective of one male medical doctor. He offered allowances for capitalist structures including insurance systems in how he references the financial cost of medical care while dying. The basis of this book refers to disability as an unfortunate reality to be overcome at best, and at worst, a fate worse than death; while the message is about the end of life, I interpreted this as not a message that disability is merely another facet of life.
Still, I believe that Dr. Gawande and his team's tireless work paid off in Being Mortal. Gawande calls out modern medicine and its practitioners for morphing death into a demon to be battled til the bitter end (and oftentimes, beyond), rather than as something to be accepted for the sake of the dying and their beloveds. While he offers guiding principles, everyone's experience with and therefore their discussions about death are different, and that is the point. Patients are people and they contain multitudes. Our love for our people must keep their humanness, and not their treatment regimen, at the forefront.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Chronic illness, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Medical trauma and Ableism
nurr's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer and Terminal illness
Moderate: Ableism
gtrue21's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Suicide, Abandonment, Ableism, Medical content, Medical trauma, Cancer, Death of parent, Dementia, Death, Confinement, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, and Forced institutionalization
jmcordero's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Terminal illness
Minor: Abandonment, Ableism, Colonisation, and Forced institutionalization
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