Gawande tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that physicians are hesitant to tell patients that there's nothing else they can do, even if statistics show procedures are unlikely to work.

The surgeon and New Yorker staff writer writes about the difficulties faced by medical professionals who must decide when to stop medical interventions and focus on improving the final days of life in his article ' Letting Go' in the Aug. Atul Gawande began researching hospice and end-of-life care options because he says he didn't know how to broach the subject of death with his terminally ill patients. He and his wife have three children and live in Newton, Massachusetts.Medical professionals need to build a system that focuses on how to help patients achieve what's most important to them at the end of their lives, says Dr. In his work in public health, he is Executive Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, a MacArthur Fellowship, and two National Magazine Awards. He is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. His latest book is Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. In his work in public health, he is Executive Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making Atul Gawande is author of three bestselling books: Complications, a finalist for the National Book Award Better, selected by as one of the ten best books of 2007 and The Checklist Manifesto.

Atul Gawande is author of three bestselling books: Complications, a finalist for the National Book Award Better, selected by as one of the ten best books of 2007 and The Checklist Manifesto.

Complications by Atul Gawande