What's Worth Living For? | Dr. Atul Gawande
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What does Dr. Gawande identify as the simple question that reveals what makes life worth living?
Hey everybody, welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I am your host, Dan Harris. As a Buddhist, I am simultaneously galvanized by and terrified by the unavoidable fact of death. Galvanized because being aware of your mortality can make life more vivid and vibrant in the present moment. And terrified because, like, who's not afraid of dying? Uh today, though, I'm talking to a very famous doctor who argues that we can. make this process, which again is coming for all of us, much more humane. Dr. Atul Gawande is a renowned surgeon, uh a Harvard professor, uh a writer for the New Yorker, and the best selling author of many, many books, including uh the one we're gonna focus on today, which is called Being Mortal.
Now you might be thinking, didn't Being Mortal come out in 2014? Uh yes, it did. Um, but that was before I had a podcast. And I've been meaning to have Dr. Gwande on the show for a long time. And then I found an excuse because just a few months ago, the New York Times listed Being Mortal as one of the top five books that will lift you up in hard times, which reminded me that I wanted to have uh Dr. Gwande on. So here he is, Dr. Ratul Gwande. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Dan. When my dad uh was still working, um, he was the head of radiation oncology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and he used to rave about this brilliant young surgeon who was writing articles for the New Yorker and I should read those articles and he was talking about you.
So it's very nice to to finally meet you. What's your dad's name? Jay Harris. Oh my god. Yes. I've shared patience with him. That's amazing. That's your dad. He's in a very different situation than when you knew him. He's had a lot of health problems. He had a stroke and um uh has uh a form of Parkinson, so he's sometimes walking uh uh uh case study in in permanence.
Tell him hello, but also you're going through what everybody goes through uh dealing with a family member who's got significant challenges now.
Yes, and so that brings us to to your book. Uh again, uh being mortal, uh n just one of many, many books you you've written. One of the big through lines in the book was your experience with your father. Mm maybe let's start there.
Yeah, my father um was a surgeon himself. So I'm a I'm a surgical oncologist at the Brigham and Dana Farber um in Boston. Uh my father was a urologist. My mother was a pediatrician there. I grew up in Athens, Ohio, and he developed a tumor in his brain stem and spinal cord that um started causing him to have pain. His neck and a scan revealed a tumor that was too large to actually remove. Um, and that became our three and a half year, almost four-year journey with struggling through the condition he had and the life he would be facing with it. There were things that could be done. Um, there was Operations, biopsies that could be offered, uh, chemotherapy, radiation. He would take some of those choices.
He would take decide not to take other of those choices. But what struck me was we had over a hundred years of medical training between the three of us and my sister coming in as well as a non-medical person. And uh and we were no better equipped than anybody else to navigate it. And I started writing the book really because I had reached a point in my career when I was confident that if you had a problem I could fix, I could give you a great chance at fixing it. But come to me with a problem like the kind of problem my father had. And I didn't even I I was uncomfortable and I didn't know even what it meant to be good at taking care of people, uh, let alone actually being good at it. And getting to write was an excuse to start
talking to people. It's strange to go as a doctor up to people and say things like, Hey, can I come watch you, a geriatrician, in your office today? Or you know, can I go follow you a patient as you navigate things at home? But when you're writing an article or then writing a book, uh I you're allowed to do those things. And it was an amazing opportunity. I ultimately interviewed over 200 people, um, practitioners, patients, family members, um, as they all coped with these kinds of problems.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does Dr. Gawande identify as the simple question that reveals what makes life worth living?
0:03–5:09
2
How did Dr. Gawande’s father’s answer to “what’s worth living for?” change over time?
5:09–11:38
3
Why do doctors need to ask patients about their priorities before choosing treatment?
11:38–19:38
4
What research shows that people become emotionally calmer, not sadder, as they age?
19:38–28:36
5
How do independence and safety pull in different directions for older adults?
28:36–37:38
6
What happened when the U.S. shut down its global health aid programs and why does it matter?
37:38–52:26
7
Why does Dr. Gawande see AI as a helpful second opinion rather than a replacement for doctors?
52:26–57:45
8
What are Dr. Gawande’s current projects and what excites him about the future?
57:45–59:12
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from 10% Happier with Dan Harris
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