Quotes from Atul Gawande

He said he was well, and I did not press for details.

To succeed, however, it must be done early.

The value of autonomy Ã¢â'¬Â¦ lies in the scheme of responsibility it creates: autonomy makes each of us responsible for shaping his own life according to some coherent and distinctive sense of character, conviction, and interest. It allows us to lead our own lives rather than be led along them, so that each of us can be, to the extent such a scheme of rights can make this possible, what he has made himself." All

People often look to great athletes for lessons about performance. ... But success in medicine has dimensions that cannot be found on a playing field.

As you get older, the lordosis of your spine tips

Dressing somebody is easier than letting them dress themselves. It takes less time. It's less aggravation. So unless supporting people's capabilities is made a priority, the staff ends up dressing people like they're rag dolls. Gradually, that's how everything begins to go. The tasks come to matter more than the people.

The checklist cannot be lengthy. A rule of thumb some use is to keep it to between five and nine items, which is the limit of working memory. Boorman didn't think one had to be religious on this point. "It

The patient gave me a look.

But once he put his recommendations down on paper it was hard for hospitals and medical groups not to follow through and hold doctors to the plan.

When we talked about getting together

What's more, Eleanor's fever had gone away;

When should we try to fix and when should we not?

They'd not only nearly killed the man but also failed to recognize how.

As one surgeon told me, it is a rare but alarming thing to meet a surgeon without fear. "If you're not a little afraid when you operate," he said, "you're bound to do a patient a grave disservice.

once trouble occurred everything unfolded almost automatically:

knew I was letting myself be swayed by a single, recent, anecdotal case.

You have a cough that won't go away—and then? It's not science you call upon but a doctor. A doctor with good days and bad days. A doctor with a weird laugh and a bad haircut. A doctor with three other patients to see and, inevitably, gaps in what he knows and skills he's still trying to learn.

So you want to keep the list short by focusing on what he called "the killer items"—the steps that are most dangerous to skip and sometimes overlooked nonetheless.

Here? I asked with my eyes, not wanting to undermine my patient's confidence any further.

A year ago, he would have eaten to the point of nausea. "But now they're, I don't know, they're too sweet.

But then I told him there was still one other possibility that I couldn't get out of my head: a necrotizing fasciitis.

In a year, fewer than three hundred doctors will complete geriatrics training in the United States, not nearly enough to replace the geriatricians going into retirement, let alone meet the needs of the next decade. Geriatric psychiatrists, nurses, and social workers are equally needed, and in no better supply.

The wording should be simple and exact, Boorman went on, and use the familiar language of the profession. Even the look of the checklist matters. Ideally, it should fit on one page. It should be free of clutter and unnecessary colors. It should use both uppercase and lowercase text for ease of reading. (He went so far as to recommend using a sans serif type like Helvetica.)

much about it. When