Being Mortal
Questions to Ask Terminally Ill Patients
In Dr. Atul Gawande’s book, Being Mortal, Atul uses his father’s powerful story to explore the concept of shared decision making in medicine – the idea that the ideal modern doctor should be neither paternalistic nor informative but rather interpretive, helping patients determine their priorities and achieve them. He shares the lessons he learned to talk honestly with patients… first, what do they want to know? Then he tells them and then he asks them what they understood. He reminds clinicians to focus on the goals patients have for the rest of their life and together design a plan that meets those goals.