Dr Atul Gawande,
one of the world’s biggest-selling and most influential health writers, is to
give a public lecture in Wellington.
Dr Gawande,
an American surgeon who writes about health for the New Yorker magazine,
is the author of books such as The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things
Right and, most recently, Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What
Matters in the End.
Being
Mortal has sparked
much international discussion and has tapped into fresh thinking about the
importance of advance care planning and what people want from aged and
end-of-life care.
Last year, Dr
Gawande gave the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC in the UK.
His
Wellington lecture is on Monday 18 May at 6pm–7.30pm (doors open 5.30pm) in
Shed 6 on Wellington waterfront and is being hosted by the Health Quality &
Safety Commission, with support from PwC. Tickets are $10 (plus booking fee).
Broadcaster
and lawyer Linda Clark will introduce the lecture and moderate audience
questions afterward.
‘Time
magazine called Being Mortal mandatory reading for every American,’ says
Commission chair Professor Alan Merry. ‘I would call it mandatory reading for
everyone, because everyone will go through one or more of the experiences it
examines – a terminal event or illness, growing old, and dying.
‘No one,
therefore, should miss what Dr Gawande has to say about better tailoring our
handling of these experiences to the individual involved, with a greater
emphasis on the wishes of patients and their families instead of being bound by
inflexible medical and aged care systems.’
Earlier on 18
May, Dr Gawande will be headlining a day-long forum for health professionals
and people working in the aged and end-of-life care sectors, which is also
being hosted by the Commission with support from PwC.
He will be
coming on to Wellington from the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival, where he is in
conversation with Commission board member Dr David Galler, an intensive care
specialist at Middlemore Hospital, on Saturday 16 May at 5.30pm; and in a panel
conversation on the future on Sunday 17 May at 3pm. Both events are in the
Aotea Centre’s ASB Theatre, with tickets, priced from $15, available from www.ticketmaster.co.nz.
Tickets for
Dr Gawande’s Wellington public lecture are available from www.ticketek.co.nz, 0800 TICKETEK (842 538) and Ticketek
outlets (see website for addresses).
For further
information, contact Commission communications coordinator Guy Somerset, (04)
913 1745, 021 813 591, guy.somerset@hqsc.govt.nz.
For further information on Dr Gawande’s Auckland Writers Festival
appearances, contact Penny Hartill, director, hPR, (09) 445 7525, 021 721 424, penny@hartillpr.co.nz.
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