In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.
Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.
Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.

◆重症监护室一线医生写给普通人的急救指南
◆细数重症医学历史上的科学飞跃，讲述至暗时刻人类如何绝地求生
◆自诞生之日起，重症监护室已经拯救了约5亿人的生命，这里是离死亡最近的地方，也是生命的最后一道防线。
◆为什么人类的免疫系统会自我攻击？为什么失眠会严重影响健康？如果家人遭遇心脏停搏，我们应该在第一时间做什么？危急关头，这些健康常识或许能救你一命。
◆机器在未来可以替代医生吗？为什么科学研究对医治病人至关重要？医疗资源面前，真的人人平等吗？重症监护室的医生不仅要面对病人的真实病痛，还有更多复杂的社会与伦理难题。
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【内容简介】
病情危重，通常指病人有一个或多个重要器官无法正常运作。
18岁少年在异国被感染后患上严重败血症，他能存活下来吗？
一名法官在庭审期间突然倒地不起，心跳与呼吸全无，他真的“死”了吗？
怀孕母亲遭遇严重心脏衰竭，她和宝宝能平安迈过这道坎吗？
手术后，患者原本5米长的肠道仅剩20厘米，她今后还能正常进食吗？
……
1952年，因感染病毒而命悬一线的12岁女孩在世界上第一间重症监护室中重获新生。以这个故事为起点，重症监护室资深医生马特·摩根讲述了重症医学背后的历史沿革与科学发展。摩根医生借助职业生涯中遇到的上述真实病例，使我们逐步了解重症监护室的日常运作，深入认识人体不同器官的功能与奥秘，并告诉我们，在生死关头应如何救人或自救。
一名重症监护室医生通常需要掌握13000种疾病诊断、6000种药物和4000种外科手术。 对普通人来说惊心动魄的时刻，却是他们经历的每分每秒。
重症监护室的医疗团队倾尽所能，帮助病人度过生命的至暗时刻。许多病人最终康复出院，另一些不幸离世的病人也没有被忘记，正是他们的故事改变了我们对死亡的理解，也让我们更明白生命究竟意味着什么。
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【评价与推荐】
每位医务工作者都曾亲眼目睹生命的悲欢离合，而发生在重症监护室的故事往往最令人震动，从这本书开始，让我们一起走进重症医学的世界吧。
——杨燕丽（北京协和医院呼吸与危重症医学科主治医师）
（本书）对重症监护室所做的扣人心弦的写实描绘，提醒着我们生命有多脆弱。《重症监护室的故事》充满了谦卑与洞见，让我们得以一探这个每天都在拯救生命的医学世界。
——苏·布莱克女爵士（著名法医人类学家、兰卡斯特大学副校长）
马特·摩根关于生死边缘的描写优美而动人。他的书中充满了生动鲜活的例子和真知灼见，让人们开始关注医疗前线上人类的宝贵经验。
——加内什·孙塔拉林加姆（麻醉师、英国重症监护学会主席）
我们无疑是幸运的，有像摩根医生这般投入、体贴又谦逊的人在急救医疗前线服务。更难得的是，他还是一位作家，把工作中的一切兴奋、悲伤、辉煌甚至恼怒记录了下来。
——彼得·布林德利（加拿大阿尔伯塔大学重症监护医学、麻醉学、医学伦理学教授）
这本鼓舞人心的书，字里行间流露出智慧和悲悯，能帮助我们更好地理解当下这个特殊时刻。
——《泰晤士报》

新手医生阿图满怀抱负进入梦想中的白色巨塔，他将遇到哪些意想不到的试炼？硬着头皮第一次拿起手术刀的他，将如何处理突如其来的变故？在错误切开病人气管的时候，他如何面对从手边一丝丝逝去的生命？在“成功是常态，失败就是一条人命”的职业生涯中，在每一个或者温暖或惊悚的病例故事背后，都是生与死的殊死较量。
本书精选了14个主题，从不同侧面展现了医生所面对的世界的不确定性，和做抉择时需要考虑的复杂因素。一个个医学现象背后，是外科医生群体的自我审视与修炼。
适合医疗界人士、政策制定者和普通大众阅读。

A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis," the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D.
"The experience of being ill can be like waking up in a foreign country. Life, as you formerly knew it, is on hold while you travel through this other world as unknown as it is unexpected. When I see patients in the hospital or in my office who are suddenly, surprisingly ill, what they really want to know is, ‘What is wrong with me?’ They want a road map that will help them manage their new surroundings. The ability to give this unnerving and unfamiliar place a name, to know it–on some level–restores a measure of control, independent of whether or not that diagnosis comes attached to a cure. Because, even today, a diagnosis is frequently all a good doctor has to offer."
A healthy young man suddenly loses his memory–making him unable to remember the events of each passing hour. Two patients diagnosed with Lyme disease improve after antibiotic treatment–only to have their symptoms mysteriously return. A young woman lies dying in the ICU–bleeding, jaundiced, incoherent–and none of her doctors know what is killing her. In Every Patient Tells a Story , Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving these and other diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis.
Never in human history have doctors had the knowledge, the tools, and the skills that they have today to diagnose illness and disease. And yet mistakes are made, diagnoses missed, symptoms or tests misunderstood. In this high-tech world of modern medicine, Sanders shows us that knowledge, while essential, is not sufficient to unravel the complexities of illness. She presents an unflinching look inside the detective story that marks nearly every illness–the diagnosis–revealing the combination of uncertainty and intrigue that doctors face when confronting patients who are sick or dying. Through dramatic stories of patients with baffling symptoms, Sanders portrays the absolute necessity and surprising difficulties of getting the patient’s story, the challenges of the physical exam, the pitfalls of doctor-to-doctor communication, the vagaries of tests, and the near calamity of diagnostic errors. In Every Patient Tells a Story , Dr. Sanders chronicles the real-life drama of doctors solving these difficult medical mysteries that not only illustrate the art and science of diagnosis, but often save the patients’ lives.

“医学大神”系列以十四册、九十万字的体量，忠实再现四百年现代医学史，精细描摹十四位业界传奇大神，并穿插解说医学科普知识，是一套集传记、历史、科普于一身的大众读物。