Jewel Douglass Character Analysis

Jewel Douglass is one of Gawande’s patients. Douglass is 72 years old and has metastatic ovarian cancer when Gawande begins treating her. After three rounds of chemotherapy, a tumor begins pressing against her bowels and she vomits up everything she eats. Gawande knows that it’s unlikely she’ll live for more than a year or two. Rather than simply providing her with treatment options as he might usually, Gawande helps Jewel identify her priorities so that he can advise her on the best treatment options. When she says that she wants to be able to eat again, but doesn’t want to take unnecessary risks in surgery, Gawande comes up with a compromise. He states that he will open her up, but if he sees that removing the tumor would be too complicated, he will stop and recommend hospice care instead. This is exactly what ends up happening, and Jewel spends her last two weeks surrounded by family and friends—what her daughter later calls a “perfect ending.” Because Gawande was realistic with Douglass and advised her based on her priorities, she was able to die in the way that she wanted.