Quotes from Atul Gawande

But the truth of the matter is that it tends to raise as many questions as it answers.

More than 40 percent of oncologists admit to offering treatments that they believe are unlikely to work.

Oh thank God I can go myself to the bathroom," Makover told me. "You would think it's nothing. You're young. You'll understand when you're older, but the best thing in your life is when you can go yourself to the bathroom.

In the seats around us, it was much the same.

So what was the actual basis for charging Noe?

and a completely unfair question popped into my mind.

But in the end, I came to think, there was also something more vital and, in a certain way, poignant drawing us in.

But under promise of anonymity, an official admitted that there was no direct evidence to support the charges of homicide.

There was silence for a moment.

And that summer, as Hurricane Ella made its way toward the city, an emergency crew worked at night under veil of secrecy to weld two-inch-thick steel plates around the two hundred critical bolts, and the building was secured. The Citicorp tower has stood solidly ever since. The

anyone who really knows what it is like to cut a stomach cancer from a patient

the pattern alone indicated that the manner of death was homicide.

He decided to put off the follow-up appointment. It was ultimately a year before he returned to see Benzel. A repeat MRI showed the tumor had enlarged.

that I myself have said no.

we usually have only vague indicators to rely upon.

Precisely when and how many such procedures would be necessary over the years they could not say.

I couldn't help but think, however, that my social status played a role in all this.

And then a new question arises: If independence is what we live for, what do we do when it can no longer be sustained? In

No one pitied him as he wished to be pitied," writes Tolstoy. "At certain moments after prolonged suffering he wished most of all (though he would have been ashamed to confess it) for someone to pity him as a sick child is pitied. He longed to be petted and comforted. He knew he was an important functionary, that he had a beard turning grey, and that therefore what he longed for was impossible, but still he longed for it.

In a sense, the advances of modern medicine have given us two revolutions: we've undergone a biological transformation of the course of our lives and also a cultural transformation of how we think about that course.

we had not chosen who that cardiologist would be.

When other doctors needed an orthopedist for family and friends, they called on him.

But the fact of eight deaths must mean something, right?

He was surrounded and supported by family at all times, and he was revered—not in spite of his age but because of it. He was consulted on all important matters—marriages, land disputes, business decisions—and occupied a place of high honor in the family. When we ate, we served him first. When young people came into his home, they bowed and touched his feet in supplication.