![\"COM](\"\/camed\/files\/2016\/01\/COM-Gawande_Atul1-e1452286230920.jpg\")
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Facing a room filled with eager listening ears and eyes, Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, renowned surgeon, writer and public health researcher had one disclaimer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not come to you as an expert in palliative care,\u201d he emphasized. \u201cRather, I come to you as someone who went on a path trying to figure out what it means to be a good doctor to people who are facing the end of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, Jan. 8, <\/em> The New York Times <\/em>best selling author was the featured speaker for the Department of Medicine\u2019s Grand Rounds. Many of the faculty, staff and students who attended held copies of Gawande\u2019s newest book, “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.”<\/p>\n Gawande recounted personal stories of patients facing end of life, and how doctors \u2013 uncomfortable with discussing patients\u2019 anxieties about death \u2013 fall back on false hopes and treatments that shorten lives instead of improving them.<\/p>\n \u201cAsk your patients, what are you fighting for? Are you fighting for more time?\u201d he said. \u201cOr are you fighting for the best possible day today? Then, we can help give them direction. For a patient, it\u2019s not about giving up. It\u2019s about what they want to fight for.\u201d<\/p>\n Gawande is no stranger to the struggles of his profession. A practicing surgeon at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital, his new book examines medicine\u2019s limitations and failures and examines his own practices, as well as others\u2019, as life draws to a close.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a great fear that having these end of life conversations with a patient would take away hope and increase anxiety. I don\u2019t think that is the case at all,\u201d he said. \u201cI never expected that I would have some of the most important and gratifying experiences of my career in helping people that I did not know how to cure.\u201d<\/p>\n Having just read Gawande\u2019s book over the holiday break, first-year medical student, Maria Eberle appreciated his presentation.\u201cI really agree with his outlook on end of life care,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s so important for medical students and current doctors to hear his perspective and to learn how to have those hard conversations with those facing their mortality.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The four time New York Times best-selling author was the featured speaker at BUSM\u2019s Department of Medicine\u2019s Grand Rounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124,91],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27246"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27255,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27246\/revisions\/27255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}