Stephen Jay Gould 's Life

I. Imagine yourself or a loved one just diagnosed with a terminal debilitating illness. You are given at best six months to live. During those six months your prognosis will turn from bad to worse. You know you will eventually be in an uncontrollable amount of persistent pain. You will eventually lose the ability to feed, dress, or bathe and toilet yourself. Your once very active life will become one

Since the birth of literature, academics and authors alike have been relentlessly trying to leave their written mark on history. Now whether they did so with intellect or with style was dependent on their work but nevertheless, few have been able to master both as passionately as Stephen Jay Gould. Dedicated to the intelligent layperson, Dr.Gould uses his art to stimulate the minds of average people by simplifying complex concepts through an approachable and easily essional. In doing so, Gould hallmarks his unique style with the meticulous use of parenthesis, dashes, and out of text connections on his pursuit to reach his readers on an unprecedented level.

The argument that early detection does not guarantee successful treatment or extend life is interpreted within the

Part One: In the documentary "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande talks about the death of patients and how it 's a surprise to a large amount of the patients. He also explains the fear in the medical field, and as a doctor your suppose to help people and cure them, that you 're supposed to give them a better shot and if it later doesn 't go they way you expected,the doctors start to tell themselves what went wrong or what happen everything was going so well. Gawande talks about how he wants to learn more about how to communicate with patients and telling them that they have a certain weeks, days or months left. For example, He talks about one of his patients that he had, her name was Sarah and had stage 4 lung cancer was young and just had a

As stated by curesearch.org this does not take into consideration the many children who succumb to their cancers after more than 5 years, nor does it account for those struggling with life-threatening effects of their cancer treatment, even including secondary

Stephen Schwartz is a famous American composer, producer, and creator of music and film. With a degree in drama, Schwartz was first hired as a producer in his early years. Schwartz was interested in musical Theater since the early 1970’s when he was famous for three popular shows on Broadway; Godspell, Pippin, and The Magic Show (The Songwriters Hall of Fame). Stephen Schwartz accomplishments include winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics, obtaining three Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards and also being nominated for six Tony Awards. (circletheatre.org). Stephen Schwartz has made an impact on American Musical Theater by influencing Americans by composing famous musicals and earning many awards from which American’s remember him by.

Francis Bacon once said, “I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.” In other words, people are not afraid to die. Rather, they are afraid of the way in which they are going to die. Today, four centuries of medical progress later, Bacon’s words are truer than ever. Medical advances have allowed physicians to prolong the lives of their patients, or maybe it would be better to say, to prolong their deaths. People are made to live too long in ways they would not choose: dependent upon machines, lying in comas, and suffering unbearable pain. Bacon’s “stroke of death” has become the “stretch of death,” giving people all that much more to fear.

5. When is it more appropriate to use the median as a measure of center rather than the mean? Why?

Imagine going to the doctor after numerous, severe headaches. The doctor performs a CT scan that reveals a rapidly growing brain tumor. The doctor breaks down the information, reveals that the tumor is a rare form of cancer, and is inoperable. Unfortunately, the doctor also relays the life expectancy with a cancer this rare and aggressive; a few months at best and those short months will become increasingly

Dennis P. Kimbo once said, “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” Despite the numerous obstacles of life, people can choose how they react. Today, many people are faced with the obstacle of life threatening diseases. By some diseases being incurable, the cloud of only having so much longer to live hangs over them. As a result, some may choose the option of euthanasia if it is available. In the contrasting pieces of writing, Kara Tippetts use of ethos about euthanasia is more convincing than Brittany Maynard use of logos.

For many patients with incurable illnesses around the world, the time to stop particular treatments is an ongoing argument. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and staff writer for The New York Times, has been following this debate since his medical practice and strives to inform the public on how to handle mortality. In his article, The Best Possible Day, Gawande employs an anecdote, Ethos, and a eulogy to encourage the audience to consider adjusting a sick person’s care according to how they feel.

The median is basically the middle score for a set of data that has been arranged in order of extent. The median is less affected by outliers and twisted data

As mentioned in a Frontline interview with Gawande about Being Mortal, life’s two ‘unfixables’ are aging ang dying ("Dr. Atul Gawande On Aging, Dying And "Being Mortal"). Despite this well-known fact, most physicians and patients alike are overwhelmed by the concept of death. Moreover, in times of medical crisis, terminally ill patients allow themselves to be given “the medical equivalent of lottery tickets” in the hopes of making a miraculous recovery (Gawande 171). The allowance of end-of-life decisions to be controlled by the concepts of medicine or technology is a dangerous path which shows a lack in pragmatism regarding death (Sinclair). Although the overall avoidance of the

Modern medicine has been fighting death and whether that is good or bad remains unknown. In the essay “On The Fear Of Dying,” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross dissects modern medicines effects on living and examines the mental and emotional toll it has taken on people. In the essay she talks about how regardless of modern medicine’s benefits, has allowed us to become more wary of acknowledging death and accepting it. The author explains that despite the advantages of these new advancements, medical advancements have lead to more emotional and mental problems regarding death. While Kübler-Ross takes a rather grim outlook on modern medicine, I agree with her; modern medicine has increased the average lifespan but has not changed the fearful ways we view death, has destroyed how we cope with death and dying, and has made dying an unpleasant experience.

Throughout the entirety of his memoir, Randy Pausch, a man dying of pancreatic cancer, is extremely upbeat and positive. He never pretends that his illness isn’t there, but also never dwells on the fact that it is. His doctor sums this attitude up perfectly by calling him “his poster boy for ‘the healthy balance between optimism and realism’ ” (Pausch 183). Being able to have a positive attitude is the most prominent and, to me, the most important lesson that The Last Lecture teaches. Randy’s understanding of optimism vs. pessimism comes simply from the childhood story, Winnie the Pooh: ”Each of us must decide: Am I a fun-loving Tigger or am I a sad-sack Eeyore?” (Pausch 180). Randy is clearly a Tigger, and I can very easily identify with that part of him. I am often too optimistic, to the point where I can be perceived as slightly obnoxious. But I’ve always lived by the “fake it ‘till you make it” idiom, meaning that when I truly feel bad about a situation I’m in, I can make myself feel better just by acting like things are okay. This doesn’t mean I am blind to real problems, I just do what I can to make them easier to deal with. I believe that Randy had similar beliefs regarding his cancer, as his “...personal take on optimism is that as a mental state, it can enable you to do tangible things to improve your physical state” (Pausch 183). All of the other ideals that Dr. Pausch lived by are important, but I think that his positivity is truly what enabled him to achieve his dreams and live a full