Post 3: The Way We Age Now by Atul Gawande

In the essay The Way We Age Now by Atul Gawande the topic of elderly health is written about in detail. Atul Gawande is a surgeon, writer, Harvard professor and public health researcher. He has been a contributor for New Yorker magazine since 1998 and has written several bestselling books (Gudrais). Medical treatment that is given to the elderly is known as geriatrics medicine; the essay goes into further detail about this form of medicine. The work started off with medical facts and statistics about the elderly and then goes into specific individual lives of selected patients. The Way We Age Now surrounds the present day situation for the elderly and slightly into what the future may look like in terms of treatment available for the older population. The purpose of the essay was to inform readers about the demise of the care for the elderly and to persuade people to respect geriatrics more. This essay was targeted towards people in the world who were slightly indifferent to elderly medicine before reading the essay. Atul Gawande used pathos in The Way We Age Now which was important to achieve the purpose. The essay appealed to the readers' emotions by adding in real people alongside the medical facts involved. He told the story of the patient rather than just their medical problems making them more human. This appeals to the audience because the person in the story becomes far more easy to relate to thus evoking more emotion from the reader. I believe that the Atul did accomplish his purpose. Over the course of the essay I received more information about the elderly and geriatrics that I had no knowledge of before. I found that the author had a perfect blend of personal touches and medical background that was needed in order get his purpose across.

Work Cited

Gudrais, Elizabeth. "Atul Gawande: surgeon, health-policy scholar, and writer | Harvard Magazine Sep-Oct   2009." Harvard Magazine | Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898. Harvard
College, n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2013. <http://harvardmagazine.com/2009/09/atul-gawande-surgeon-health-   policy-scholar-writer>.