Quote

What about regular professionals, who just want to do what they do as well as they can?

Atul Gawande

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Atul Gawande
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: May 11
Journalist
Medical Writer
Professor
Researcher
Surgeon
Brooklyn
New York
Atul A Gawande
Atul Gawande
Professionals
Regular
Wells
Well

More quotes by Atul Gawande

Image
Are doctors who make mistakes villains? No, because then we all are.
Atul Gawande
Image
The possibilities and probabilities are all we have to work with in medicine, though. What we are drawn to in this imperfect science, what we in fact covet in our way, is the alterable moment-the fragile but crystalline opportunity for one's know-how, ability, or just gut instinct to change the course of another's life for the better.
Atul Gawande
Image
This is the reality of intensive care: at any point, we are as apt to harm as we are to heal.
Atul Gawande
Image
Checklists turn out...to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains.
Atul Gawande
Image
You know, 97 percent of the time, if you come into a hospital, everything goes well. But three percent of the time, we have major complications.
Atul Gawande
Image
We recruit for attitude and train for skill.
Atul Gawande
Image
Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance.
Atul Gawande
Image
I learned about a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn't one of them.
Atul Gawande
Image
This was not guilt: guilt is what you feel when you have done something wrong. What I felt was shame: I was what was wrong.
Atul Gawande
Image
Arriving at an acceptance of one's mortality is a process, not an epiphany.
Atul Gawande
Image
I think the extreme complexity of medicine has become more than an individual clinician can handle. But not more than teams of clinicians can handle.
Atul Gawande
Image
Life is choices, and they are relentless. No sooner have you made one choice than another is upon you.
Atul Gawande
Image
Making systems work is the great task of my generation of physicians and scientists. But I would go further and say that making systems work - whether in healthcare, education, climate change, making a pathway out of poverty - is the great task of our generation as a whole.
Atul Gawande
Image
We have medicalized aging, and that experiment is failing us.
Atul Gawande
Image
One of the consequences of if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, is that all of us now are at risk of being a preexisting - of having a preexisting condition waiting to happen. Life, increasingly, is a preexisting condition waiting to happen, now that we have more and more of this data available.
Atul Gawande
Image
We yearn for frictionless, technological solutions. But people talking to people is still the way norms and standards change.
Atul Gawande
Image
No one teaches you how to think about money in medical school or residency. Yet, from the moment you start practicing, you must think about it. You must consider what is covered for a patient and what is not.
Atul Gawande
Image
People who reach certain levels of frailty, more important than getting their mammogram, more important than getting their blood pressure tweaked, they're at high risk of falling. If they fall and break their hip, they not only die sooner, they die miserably.
Atul Gawande
Image
You want to ensure people can do it right 99 percent of time. When we have to fire one of our surgical trainees, it is never because they dont have the physical skills but because they dont have the moral skills - to practise and admit failure.
Atul Gawande
Image
Human interaction is the key force in overcoming resistance and speeding change.
Atul Gawande