Atul Gawande Comes to WRITERS ON A NEW ENGLAND STAGE, 9/8

On Friday, September 8, Atul Gawande will take the stage to discuss his New York Times bestselling book BEING MORTAL: Medicine and What Matters in the End. In this celebrated nonfiction work, just out in paperback, the decorated writer and surgeon addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Full of research and riveting storytelling, the book asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end.

The 7pm event includes an author presentation followed by an onstage interview with Virginia Prescott, host of New Hampshire Public Radio's "Word of Mouth." It will be held at The Music Hall's Historic Theater at 28 Chestnut Street, in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Each ticket purchased will include a discounted, autographed paperback edition of BEING MORTAL.

"We have been working with Atul Gawande's publisher for many years to bring him and BEING MORTAL to Writers on a New England Stage. We're thrilled the day is coming, and we are not alone - we've seen unprecedented interest in Atul Gawande,his book, and its wise conclusions," said Margaret Talcott, Producer of Writers on a New England Stage. "Few seats remain, and I encourage folks who are interested to act quickly!"

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.

Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients' anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them.

In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Now he examines its ultimate limitations and failures in his own practices as well as others' as life draws to a close. Riveting, honest, and humane, BEING MORTAL shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life - all the way to the very end.

Atul Gawande is author of four bestselling books: Complications, a finalist for the National Book Award; Better, selected by Amazon as one of the ten best books of 2007; The Checklist Manifesto; and his most recent, BEING MORTAL. 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. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, a MacArthur Fellowship, and two National Magazine Awards. 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 and his wife have three children and live in Newton, Massachusetts.

TICKETS

Tickets for Writers on a New England Stage: Atul Gawande on Friday, September 8, at 7:00pm are $26 ($24 for members) and include a discounted, autographed copy of his book BEING MORTAL (paperback). Tickets can be purchased online at TheMusicHall.org, over the phone at 603.436.2400 or in person at the B2W Box Office at the Historic Theater, 28 Chestnut Street.

About Writers on a New England Stage

Each literary evening features an author presentation followed by an onstage interview with Virginia Prescott, host of New Hampshire Public Radio's "Word of Mouth." Live music is performed by the award-winning house band Dreadnaught. Shows are rebroadcast on New Hampshire Public Radio.

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