Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance

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Better: A Surgeons Notes on Performance

  • ISBN13: 9780312427658
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

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National Bestseller
 

The struggle to perform well is universal: each of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more vital than in medicine, where lives may be on the line with any choice.

 

Atul Gawande, the New York Times bestselling leader of Complications, examines, in riveting accounts of medical failure and triumph, how success is achieved in this complex and risk-filled profession. At once unflinching and compassionate, Better is an exhilarating journey, narrated by “arguably the best nonfiction doctor-writer around” (Salon.com).

Atul Gawande, a MacArthur fellow, is a all-purpose surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. His first book Complications, was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Award. Gawande lives with his wife and three children in Newton, Massachusetts.
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more vital than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every choice. In his new book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable.
 
Gawande’s gripping tales of diligence, ingenuity, and what it means to do right by people take us to battlefield surgical tents in Iraq, labor and manner of language rooms in Boston, a polio outbreak in India, and malpractice courtrooms around the country. He discusses the ethical dilemmas of doctors’ participation in lethal injections, examines the influence of money on modern medicine, and recounts the wonderfully contentious history of hand washing. And as in all his writing, Gawande gives us an inside look at his own life as a practicing surgeon, offering a searingly honest firsthand account of work in a meadow where mistakes are both unavoidable and unthinkable.
 
At once unflinching and compassionate, Better is an exhilarating journey narrated by “a writer with a penknife pen and an X-ray eye” (Time). Gawande’s investigation into medical professionals and how they progress from merely excellent to fantastic provides rare insight into the fundamentals of success, illuminating every area of human endeavor.
“‘What does it take to be excellent at something, when failure is so simple?’ questions writer/physician Gawande . . . Diligence, ingenuity and ‘doing right’ . . . Gawande illustrates each of these qualities with tales from his own experience, [and] his observations of and conversations with additional physicians . . . For young doctors . . . Gawande suggests five strategies: Question unscripted questions, don’t complain, ‘count something’ (be a scientist as well as a doctor), write something (to make yourself part of a larger world) and change in response to new thoughts. A must-read for medical professionals-and a discerning, humanizing portrait of doctors at work for the rest of us.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Gawande provides a clear-eyed view of the medical profession that both resonates and gives intermission. Once again, he spares no one, himself included. Gawande, a surgeon, manages to capture medicine in all of its complex and chaotic glory, and to place it, still squirming with life, down on the page . . . Gawande’s meditation on performance is not only an absorbing collection of essays but also an exhilarating call for the rest of us to do the same . . . Gawande has the ability to deconstruct and clarify the most hard issues while preserving, even celebrating, their complexity. He applies a sly sense of humor to even the most unsettling topics. And his voice is so direct that at times it limits on painful (at least from the perspective of a fellow doctor) . . . With this book, Gawande inspires all of us, doctor or not, to be better.”—Pauline W. Chen, The New York Times Book Review
 
“Atul Gawande is more interested in behavioural tendencies than emotional ones. His book is wider in scope and rich in fascinating detail.”—The Economist
 
“Throughout Better, Gawande addresses the ethical and philosophical questions of medicine’s role toward the common excellent . . . Gawande is unassuming in every way, and yet his prose is infused with steadfast determination and hope. If society is the uncomplaining here, I can’t reflect of a better guy to have out back.”—Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe
 
“The three ingredients of excellent doctoring, according to the leader, are ‘diligence,’ ‘doing right’ and ‘ingenuity.’ He cited examples from a wide range of life-and-death situations to illustrate how these three key attributes save lives . . . Literary books by doctors are few, and vital, agreed the intricate scenery of the doctor-uncomplaining relationship. Gawande’s insightful book illuminates the challenging choices members of the profession face every day.”—Susan Salter Reynolds, Newsday
 
“Better is a masterpiece, a series of tales set inside the four walls of a hospital that end up telling us something unforgettable about the world outside.”—Malcolm Gladwell, leader of Blink
 
“Better is a mesmerizing book with fascinations on every page, told with mastery, insight, compassion, and humility by a surgeon who doesn’t flinch from taboo subjects or self-examination. His topics range from the invisible to the unspeakable, and some chapters are exciting medical mysteries. On every page, one meets a candid and thoughtful man, who pays close attention, and who somehow manages to find the right balance between intimacy and respectfulness, in a world that can be inhospitable to both.”—Diane Ackerman, leader of An Alchemy of Mind
 
“It’s hard to reflect of a writer effective today who makes such excellent use of man’s quest to avoid pain and death. Atul Gawande is not only adding to the tiny shelf of books by doctors that every layman should read. He’s using medicine to help anyone who hopes to do anything better.”—Michael Lewis, leader of The Blind Side
 
“‘What does it take to be excellent at something, when failure is so simple?’ questions writer/physician Gawande in his follow-up to Complications (2002). Diligence, ingenuity and “doing right,” he answers. Gawande illustrates each of these qualities with tales from his own experience, as well as his observations of and conversations with additional physicians. Being diligent about the simple act of hand-washing dramatically reduces hospital infections, he demonstrates, and through diligence, army

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