Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End is a non-fiction book written by an American endocrine surgeon Atul Gawande. The book was published on October 2014 by Metropolitan Books.
The central themes in the book revolve around commentary on the practice of hospice care in the United States. Gawande describes his many experiences of meeting elderly people at different stages of end-of-life care and how frailty is dealt with in the US. He advocates that instead of placing focus on survival rates, healthcare practitioners should focus on the truly important things, such as ensuring the well-being and comfort of their patients.
This book won numerous awards, including the British Medical Association Council Chair's Choice. A documentary based on the book was also released, titled, “Being Mortal”, and was distributed by PBS Frontline, and was nominated for an Emmy award in the category "Outstanding Informational Programming: Long Form."
