Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance | Atul Gawande | Organization, People and Process in...

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance | Atul Gawande | Thought provoking

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Better: A Surgeon'...

	Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance Atul Gawande Metropolitan Books, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 81 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Organization, People and Process in Medical Practice

This book is a collection of previously published and some original essays. The core idea that connects these essays is the idea of better performance in medical practice. To explain this idea, author focuses upon the social and organization aspect, not on technical medical tools and techniques. The book focuses on processes and people to describe various ways of overcoming seemingly un-breakable barriers doctors face when doing their job. From the resource constrained polio eradication project to ethically difficult choices execution assisting doctors faces to plethora of mal-practice suites to compliance issues facing simple practitioner behaviors, it explores problems and quandaries doctors face in their "normal" day to day activities. The suite of essays is full of anecdotes, thought lines and candid self-reflections. These are well written and engaging essays.

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Thought provoking

This is an easy read, but asks some profound questions about the status of medical practice in the U.S. today. Definitely worth reading.

a captivating peek into medicine

Better is an entertaining compilation of writings about different facets of medicine, I picked up this book and finished it during one travel day.

Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham's Hospital in Boston, weaves individual patient's stories with his thoughts about larger issues facing society. The stories remind us that medicine, given all of its dimensions, may be the most "human" of all endeavors.

I am not related to any doctors, I don't have any friends in the medical field, and I see my own doctor as infrequently as possible. Meanwhile, 15% of our economy is based on medicine and health care. This book was a peek into that world for me, showing how engulfing it is, occupied by deeply dedicated professionals who are barraged by emotional, intellectual and physical challenges as part of their commitment to others' health.

Gawande maps out his book in the Introduction. He says that there are three core requirements for success in medicine, around which he organizes his book: diligence, doing right and ingenuity.

In the section on diligence Gawande talks about the effort to encourage doctors and nurses to wash their hands to stop the spread of superbugs, the diligence of doctors on the battlefield in Iraq (many soldiers' lives are saved that would have been lost before,) and lastly, the effort to rid polio from the earth, how complicated and human that effort is in its problems and issues.

In the chapters on doing right Gawande talks about doctors' pay, medical lawsuits, doctors who assist in prisoner executions (when they have sworn to "do no harm") and how to know when to "pull the plug" on a dying patient (hint: you can't know.)

In the chapters on ingenuity Gawande talks about how medical centers can implement systems which improve survival. He describes in detail how a couple medical centers (and, arguably, due to the influence of a couple people in particular) are responsible for the life expectancy of cystic fybrosis patients now being up to age 45+, when in the 1960's the average patient could expect to live to age 3.

For me, reading this book was like meeting a captivating guest at a dinner party who offered me a glance into a deep, engaging, world. I came away thankful for the author and others in medicine for their commitment to a tough field in which they make meaningful differences in people's lives and well-being (and, therefore, happiness.) I know that people in medicine are as human as everyone else, and that there are people in medicine who abuse power, are greedy, etc, just as in every other field. But I think, for the most part, people enter and stay in medicine for noble reasons. This book is about those people, whom I can only admire and appreciate.

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Insightful

Atul Gawande is a fantastic writer and this book is no exception. This is a quick read that sheds a bit of light on to the ways the field of medicine has progressed. I really enjoyed Complications more, but I recommend this book as well.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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