'The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And in a war that you cannot win, you don't want a general who fights toi the point of total annihilation. You don't want Custer. You want Robert A. Lee, someone who knows how to fight for territory that can be won and how to surrender it when it can't, someone who undestands that the damage is greatest if all you do is battle to the bitter end.'
Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End, p.187.
