Atul Gawande: How do we heal medicine?

[octupus]

Atul Gawande's TED talk. Enjoy
Why you should listen to him:
A general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Atul Gawande is also a staff writer at The New Yorker who's changing the way we think about best practices in medicine (and, necessarily, about the state of the US healthcare system). In 1996 Gawande wrote his first piece for Slate, an analysis of the then-controversial illness known as Gulf War Syndrome. At The New Yorker, he turned in a shocking June 2009 piece, "The Cost Conundrum," about McAllen, Texas, the town with the second most expensive health-care market in the U.S., taking on America's high-cost low-quality healthcare system. (The piece was cited by President Obama during his campaign for healthcare reform.)
Gawande approaches medicine with a personal outlook, emphasizing the importance of a doctor's intention and reliability, and urging doctors to make small changes to improve performance. In his most recent book, The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande shows how even a simple five-point checklist can decrease up to two-thirds of ICU infections. He suggests that as modern medicine -- and indeed, the modern world -- becomes increasingly complex, we should respond with ever-simpler measures. (from: TED.com)

"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
​

If you guys haven't read his books Complications, Better, or the Checklist Manifesto, I do recommend.

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[NeuroLAX]

Atul Gawande's TED talk. Enjoy
Why you should listen to him:
A general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Atul Gawande is also a staff writer at The New Yorker who's changing the way we think about best practices in medicine (and, necessarily, about the state of the US healthcare system). In 1996 Gawande wrote his first piece for Slate, an analysis of the then-controversial illness known as Gulf War Syndrome. At The New Yorker, he turned in a shocking June 2009 piece, “The Cost Conundrum,” about McAllen, Texas, the town with the second most expensive health-care market in the U.S., taking on America’s high-cost low-quality healthcare system. (The piece was cited by President Obama during his campaign for healthcare reform.)
Gawande approaches medicine with a personal outlook, emphasizing the importance of a doctor’s intention and reliability, and urging doctors to make small changes to improve performance. In his most recent book, The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande shows how even a simple five-point checklist can decrease up to two-thirds of ICU infections. He suggests that as modern medicine -- and indeed, the modern world -- becomes increasingly complex, we should respond with ever-simpler measures. (from: TED.com)

"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
​

If you guys haven't read his books Complications, Better, or the Checklist Manifesto, I do recommend.

HIGHLY recommend reading his books too!! I have read them all and starting to re-read them because they are so intelligently written. Everyone should check out his website for all his articles and speeches: http://gawande.com/

Enjoy!

 

[CheA]

Any endorsement of Atul Gawande's writings and speeches gets my thumbs up

 

[app1]

His books should be required reading in medical school, and interviews. Better and the Checklist Manifesto helped me more in my interviews than anything else.

 

[Lilmissviolin]

His books are incredible. I think all three should be required reading for premed, if not for life.

 

[NeuroLAX]

His books are incredible. I think all three should be required reading for premed, if not for life.

Agreed. The way he ties different professions together in The Checklist Manifesto is just phenomenal. I could go on and on about his books so it just suffices to say that they are without a doubt MUST-READ books for pre-meds. I also think they should be required reading during college.

I read Intern by Sandeep Juahar before I read Dr. Gawande's trilogy. Although Intern is definitely a good read for pre-meds, nothing compares in my mind to Dr. Gawande's hat-trick.

 

[deleted393595]

Atul Gawande's TED talk. Enjoy
Why you should listen to him:
A general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Atul Gawande is also a staff writer at The New Yorker who's changing the way we think about best practices in medicine (and, necessarily, about the state of the US healthcare system). In 1996 Gawande wrote his first piece for Slate, an analysis of the then-controversial illness known as Gulf War Syndrome. At The New Yorker, he turned in a shocking June 2009 piece, "The Cost Conundrum," about McAllen, Texas, the town with the second most expensive health-care market in the U.S., taking on America's high-cost low-quality healthcare system. (The piece was cited by President Obama during his campaign for healthcare reform.)
Gawande approaches medicine with a personal outlook, emphasizing the importance of a doctor's intention and reliability, and urging doctors to make small changes to improve performance. In his most recent book, The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande shows how even a simple five-point checklist can decrease up to two-thirds of ICU infections. He suggests that as modern medicine -- and indeed, the modern world -- becomes increasingly complex, we should respond with ever-simpler measures. (from: TED.com)

"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
​

If you guys haven't read his books Complications, Better, or the Checklist Manifesto, I do recommend.

.

 

[Narmerguy]

I want to be him.

 

[EBTrailRunner]

i want to be him.

+1

 

[Dr. Ducky]

Wow...great video. I've heard of him, but I've never read anything or heard him talk. Seems like an insanely intelligent individual.

 

[Perrotfish]

I'm always amazed at how elequoent Mr Gawande can be describing healthcare's probleams and then how timid and uncreative he can be in coming up with a solution.

Problem from his TED talk: We have created a system of medical training designed on learning about the complete spectrum of medicine, when the practice of medicine is now increasing subspeicalized. It is now literally impossible to know everything about medicine, and people are failing to work together to pool their knowledge or even to follow basic procedures for the safety of their patients.

Solution: Completely revamping medical training, getting rid of the stupid undergraduate education requirement? Stop training 'medical students' and instead start training students for the specific careers like surgery, anesthesiology, or Pathology? Revamp the structure of hospitals, so that there is a clear chain of command rather than 15 people caring for a patient where no one has authority over anyone else? Nope, the solution is more checklists.

Problem from his Slate article: Medical costs are going through the roof. One in six dollars in this country is spent on healthcare, there is no real underwriting or rationing, and every financial incentive is for physicians to spend as much as possible on every patient. All of this despite the fact that there's no evidence that all of this care is achieving anything at all.

Solution: A privatized market, where patients have a real incentive to reduce the cost of their own care? And end to the protectionism that is medical licensing and barring consumers from buying drugs without perscription? Government rationing, so that patients can't run up million dollar bills during their end of life care? Making 'pay for procedure' illegal, so that all physicians are forced to live on a salary rather than increasing their income with every unnecessary test they order? Nope, the solution is to talk to physicians about controlling costs.

Mr Gawande is pretty much identical to a slew of physicians professors that you'll have in medical school. They like to discuss the failings of medicine at great length, and they strongly advocate rending your garments, gnashing your teeth, and trying even harder to squeeze water from the stone of the solutions that have already failed so spectacularly in the past. However they will never, ever, advocate any change that might in some way diminish their authority, decrease their salaries, or require them to in anyway restructure the moribund century old protectionist collusion that is modern medicine. It's not that they're bad people, they're obviously sincerely concerned about the systemic problems we face and they're willing to sacrifice time and money to try and improve what they can. However they have a hard time imaginang a system that is significantly different than it is now, so their solutions are generally tweaks. What we need a complete overhaul, and I don't think that's going to come from the people whose authority and wealth rests on the structure of the current system.

 

[MDminded]

If you guys haven't read his books Complications, Better, or the Checklist Manifesto, I do recommend.

HIGHLY recommend reading his books too!! I have read them all and starting to re-read them because they are so intelligently written. Everyone should check out his website for all his articles and speeches: http://gawande.com/

I totally love Dr. Gawande. Thanks for sharing this talk - now we can put a voice to the text!

 

[NickNaylor]

I started watching this last night but found that he was a terrible speaker and stopped, which is unfortunate because he's an excellent writer.

 

[chronicidal]

I started watching this last night but found that he was a terrible speaker and stopped, which is unfortunate because he's an excellent writer.

I don't think he's a terrible speaker. I do think he talks too slowly for my tastes.