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The BBC's annual series of lectures from a major academic figure.

The Reith Lectures: The Idea of Wellbeing

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Atul Gawande

16/12/2014

The Idea of Wellbeing

BBC World Service - The Reith Lectures, The Idea of Wellbeing

Medicine must shift from a focus on health and survival to a focus on wellbeing

Atul Gawande argues that medicine must shift from a focus on health and survival to a focus on wellbeing.

Atul Gawande is a practising surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Professor at both the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. He’s well known for his writing on medicine, and his research on medical error and performance. Amongst his other roles, he is Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint centre for health systems innovation, and Chairman of Lifebox, a global charity reducing unsafe surgery globally.
 
The fourth and final lecture, The Idea of Wellbeing, will argue that medicine must shift from a focus on health and survival to a focus on wellbeing - on protecting, insofar as possible, people’s abilities to pursue their highest priorities in life. And, as he will suggest from the story of his father’s life and death from cancer, those priorities are nearly always more complex than simply to live longer.

Photo: Dr Atul Gawande

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