What's Worth Living For? | Dr. Atul Gawande

A surprisingly uplifting conversation on aging, sickness, and death. Plus: why you get happier as you get older, hard-earned tips for handling tough diagnoses, and how to think about AI in your health care.

Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, is a surgeon, author, and public health innovator. He holds the Fish Chair in Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is the Samuel O. Thier Professor of the Practice of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Professor of the Practice at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Gawande was Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID from 2022-2025. He is a longtime writer for The New Yorker and has written four books: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why the best doctors ask patients what matters before choosing treatment
• The simple question that reveals what makes life worth living
• Why patients who get less aggressive care sometimes live longer
• His father's answer to "what's worth living for" changed three times
• Why staying independent and staying safe often pull in different directions
• Research showing people get emotionally calmer, not sadder, as they age
• What happened when the U.S. shut down its global health aid programs
• Why he sees AI as a helpful second opinion, not a replacement, for doctors

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Additional Resources:

• Being Mortal, the book
• Being Mortal, the documentary

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