Not the End

 

This is not the end. Or even the beginning of the end. This is just the end of the beginning. - Paul Kalanithi

I have two cancer books next to each other on my reading stack — by Paul Kalanithi and Nina Riggs. More on this later.

Paul Kalanithi died in 2015 at age 37. He was diagnosed twenty-two months earlier with EGFR lung cancer. First line chemo worked for a time and he went into remission, resumed his work as a skilled brain surgeon, until the cancer began growing again and no treatment existed a decade ago that could stop it. There are options today because of ongoing cancer research.

On Dying and Cancer

 

Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, 2014; Complications, 2002; Rana Awdish, In Shock, 2017.

Effective health care begins when patients feel their concerns are being heard and they are involved in deciding their course of treatments. Atul Gawande’s books speak of the need for patients to feel empathy from their doctors, and of the challenges that doctors face to provide the right care. He writes eloquently from the doctor’s perspective and tells stories in a narrative voice rather than using the language of clinical reports that cite case studies. Doctors and nurses find in him a kindred voice.