Tag: cancer

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.

A contemplation of the limits of medical care through many specific stories of decision points about when to stop treatment in favor of palliative care. Gawande has been a physician for a long time and an activist/ writer on the side of “know when to say when” – i.e. just because medical technology exists to prolong life doesn’t mean that’s the best thing to do – for almost as long. He makes convincing cases for stopping expensive treatment and “giving life to days” more often than Hail Mary passes that might bring on the 2% chance of a cure.

The book is a readily accessibe read for many audiences and could be assigned in full or excerpted. It was also the subject of a PBS documentory that could be used to supplement class use and bring the text to life.

The emperor of all maladies: A biography of cancer.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2010. It is written by a physician who interweaves his clinical experiences as a medical oncologist with the history of cancer, including how humans came to understand that it wasn’t one disease but several and how treatments were developed as scientific understanding of human bodies progressed. For example, realizing that bodies were made up of cells and that cancers were also cells rather than viruses was a big step forward in the 1840’s.

The work is constructed as within stories within stories, including cases of patients, biographies of scientists and doctors, and Mukherjee’s own learning to become an oncologist through the inevitable trial and error of medical education. Written (almost) as engagingly as any novel, it’s still a big commitment for a student or layperson and not easy to assign in small parts. It might be most useful as a background reading to get a sense of medical history generally and a somewhat soothing answer when it seems like every third person you know is dealing with cancer (partly because we’re all living so long, partly because – all that other stuff).

A last act of intimate kindness

“I had barely seen my brother in decades, but when time was short, he let me in.” In the “Modern Love” section of the NYT, a woman describes the tenderness and connection of caring for a younger brother she was mostly estranged from through his death from cancer. She’s surprised at how positive and touching it is to reconnect with him under such difficult circumstances.

The story could be used to prompt discussion of end-of-life care. The brother declines aggressive treatment and his sister is with him when he dies at home.

This narrative is also available in Spanish under the title, “Un último acto de amabilidad íntima.”