Quotes About Author

the individualized, intuitive approach that lies at the center of modern medicine is flawed—it causes more mistakes than it prevents.

the studies show that you're better off sticking with the computer's judgment.

he was the one who had put in the most time caring for Walker.

individual autonomy hardly seems the ideal we should aim for.

And there is such a strategy—though it will seem almost ridiculous in its simplicity, maybe even crazy to those of us who have spent years carefully developing ever more advanced skills and technologies. It is a checklist.

Studdert stood firm with his decision not to take more, but you could see he was uneasy about it.

Checklists seem to provide protection against such failures. They remind us of the minimum necessary steps and make them explicit. They not only offer the possibility of verification but also instill a kind of discipline of higher performance.

Was money part of the problem?

he told them of the dire condition she was in when she arrived

Josiah Royce wrote a book with the title The Philosophy of Loyalty.

that the chance to shape one's story is essential to sustaining meaning in life;

Her bosses saw her as an ideal prospect.

it's the meaning behind the information that people are looking for more than the facts. The best way to convey meaning is to tell people what the information means to you yourself, he said. And he gave me three words to use to do that.

This is someone who makes his living studying disorders of the brain and the nerves. Yet he could not make sense of his own condition.

his own failure to be at her bedside when things got out of control.

He described the bad lighting and her extremely thick neck, and was careful to make those sound not like excuses but merely like complicating factors.

Some attendings shook their heads in sympathy.

They were regarded as children: too fragile and simpleminded to handle the truth, let alone make decisions.

in the hierarchy, addressing my errors was Ball's role.

One of the reasons for this dramatic shift in how decisions are made in medicine was a 1984 book

In the end, a checklist is only an aid. If it doesn't aid, it's not right. But if it does, we must be ready to embrace the possibility.

What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make?

what is the course of action that best serves this understanding

he had brought in no income since the previous August.