Better: A Surgeons Notes on Performance
"Readers of the New Yorker magazine may be familiar with Atul Gawande's regular essays on the state of American healthcare. In this, his second book, he delves into the question of why some surgeons consistently achieve better results than others, and how the example of those positive deviants can be used to raise standards everywhere.
This collection of essays encompasses subjects as diverse as the failure to maintaining hygiene in hospitals, the ethics of doctors and nurses participating in the execution of the death penalty, medical malpractice lawsuits, how much should doctors be paid, and how doctors in India improvise to overcome a scarcity of resources. This is no dry tome; Dr Gawande illustrates his themes from his own experience, that of his family and of his colleagues, and is not afraid to let the humanity shine through. His accessible style makes this both an easy book to read and a thought-provoking one.
The lessons contained in the book go beyond medicine, and can be applied to most, if not all, professions. One of Dr Gawande's prescriptions in his concluding chapter is that we should write when we can, so that not only can our knowledge and insights benefit others, but the simple act of writing itself will clarify our own thoughts. It certainly inspired me to write this review.
" - By Robert Welbourn (Boston, USA)
"The author brings you into his last year of residency through his first few years of practice with interviews of other practitoners. His unflinching examination of the health care system gives an accurate protryal of how we are in the mess we are in. From his negotiaion to joining a surgical practice in the Boston area, to looking at rural health care, this is about a 3-4 (cross country) read on how different areas receive different medical care from a doctor who is willingly publically to question the system. Yes, it is in an essay format, but that makes it easy to pick up and put down.
" - By L. Baker "perpetual grad student"
|
