This week, my podcast guest is the author of an extraordinary book that mounts a strong critique about the way the medical profession and our health care system, care for the elderly. Louise Aronson is a geriatrician, writer and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Her book, published last summer, is Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life.
Elderhood is a New York Times bestseller, and for very good reason. Aronson argues that the experiences of older people in our healthcare system are indications that the current approach to medical care care is broken for all of us. But when it comes to old age, she writes that the system has a “devastating ignorance.” One reason the book is so compelling is that Aronson talks about these issues not only from the standpoint of policy and numbers, but from her vantage point as a practitioner. The book is full of riveting stories about her own patients - with their identities protected, of course. Some of the stories are inspiring, but many of them are very disturbing.
So, I want to recommend Elderhood to you. And, to get a taste of what it’s all about, check out my interview with Dr. Louise Aronson. Click the player icon at the top of this page to listen to the podcast.
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Louise Aronson's Elderhood: An exploration of life redefined