{"id":25210,"date":"2015-03-27T12:15:31","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T16:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=25210"},"modified":"2016-06-24T16:18:00","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T20:18:00","slug":"atul-gawande-being-mortal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/","title":{"rendered":" Atul Gawande on Being Mortal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Watch R&amp;E\u2019s interview with best-selling author and surgeon Atul Gawande about aging, dying, end-of-life care, and the limits of medicine\u2014all themes in his latest book <em>Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End<\/em>, also featured on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/being-mortal\/\">FRONTLINE on February 10<\/a>. \u00a0The book includes the story of his father\u2019s final illness and death and his family\u2019s journey to the Ganges to spread his father\u2019s ashes.<\/p>\n<p>During his surgical training and practice, writes Gawande, \u201cI encountered patients forced to confront the realities of decline and mortality, and it did not take long to realize how unready I was to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Interviewed by Susan Goldstein and Missy Daniel. Edited by Lauren Talley. Produced by Susan Goldstein.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Watch Atul Gawande on Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy\u2019s story about the suffering and death of Ivan Ilyich:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Atul Gawande on Tolstoy\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n3qZGWwqD_g?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAn illness is a story for people. It\u2019s a chapter in their life. It may be, in some cases, the last chapter in their life. Your chance to be the author of what happens in your story is fundamental to the meaning of people\u2019s lives. That story of what happens is how we think, it\u2019s how we breathe, it\u2019s how we live our whole life.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/\" class=\"more\">More <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":25213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6569],"tags":[17855,6782],"class_list":["post-25210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videocast","tag-atul-gawande","tag-end-of-life-care","topics-ethics","topics-health-and-medicine"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>February 13, 2015 ~ Atul Gawande on Being Mortal | March 27, 2015 | Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"February 13, 2015 ~ Atul Gawande on Being Mortal | March 27, 2015 | Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PBS.ReligionEthics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-27T16:15:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-06-24T20:18:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2015\/02\/feat-atul-gawande-800.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Yi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionEthics\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ReligionEthics\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Yi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Fred Yi\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0576fe5f06986bc0418635994a2bcd47\"},\"headline\":\"Atul Gawande on Being Mortal\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-03-27T16:15:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-06-24T20:18:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/\"},\"wordCount\":159,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2015\/02\/feat-atul-gawande-800.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Atul Gawande\",\"end of life care\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Videocast\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2015\/03\/27\/atul-gawande-being-mortal\/25210\/\",\"name\":\"February 13, 2015 ~ Atul Gawande on Being Mortal | March 27, 2015 | Religion &amp; 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