10/5/2014 – The Best Possible Day

Dr. Atul Gawande, Harvard professor and surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital,  spoke with more than 200 people about their experiences with aging or serious illness, or dealing with a family member’s — many of them his own patients, some in his own family. He interviewed and shadowed front-line staff members in old age homes, palliative- care specialists, hospice workers, geriatricians, nursing home reformers, pioneers, and contrarians. Among the many things learned, here are the two most fundamental.

First, in medicine and society, we have failed to recognize that people have priorities that they need us to serve besides just living longer. Second, the best way to learn those priorities is to ask about them.

Read the full article at The New York Times.