
Surgeon and public health professor by day, writer by night, Atul Gawande explores how doctors can dramatically improve their practice using approaches as simple as a checklist – or coaching.
Why you should listen
Atul Gawande is author of several best-selling books, including Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End and The Checklist Manifesto.
He is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, a MacArthur Fellowship and two National Magazine Awards. In his work in public health, he is Executive Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation and chair of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally.
In June 2018, Gawande was chosen to lead the new healthcare company set up by Amazon, JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway.
Photo: Aubrey Calo
What others say
Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.
Atul Gawande’s TED Talks
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