Atul Gawande's New Yorker Essay: Pricework

[DrDrummer]

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Hey, just your friendly neighborhood lurker stopping by to drop off a good link. Atul Gawande is a Harvard-trained surgeon/New Yorker columnist who wrote the book Complications, which is an excellent read for pre-meds/medical students. Check it out if you haven't.

Anyway, the new New Yorker has an essay by him called Pricework in this issue, and on-line. He examines the economic side of our health care system (without making too many critiques) and talks about how mystifying it can be to make the jump from the poverty of residency into a staff position. Even though it isn't the money that drives us to this profession (well, most of us...), it's still something worth knowing about.

 

[generic]

thanks, that was pretty interesting...

I wonder how things will have changed by 2009? 2012?

 

[jhugti]

bump for a well written article

 

[javert]

there was another thread about this...

 

[Tufty]

Atul is a great writer. I enjoyed reading his article, and I encourage others to check it out. He also wrote a great book titled "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science". Says Amazon.com (and I concur 🙂 ):

Gently dismantling the myth of medical infallibility, Dr. Atul Gawande's Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science is essential reading for anyone involved in medicine--on either end of the stethoscope. Medical professionals make mistakes, learn on the job, and improvise much of their technique and self-confidence. Gawande's tales are humane and passionate reminders that doctors are people, too. His prose is thoughtful and deeply engaging, shifting from sometimes painful stories of suffering patients (including his own child) to intriguing suggestions for improving medicine with the same care he expresses in the surgical theater. Some of his ideas will make health care providers nervous or even angry, but his disarming style, confessional tone, and thoughtful arguments should win over most readers. Complications is a book with heart and an excellent bedside manner, celebrating rather than berating doctors for being merely human.

there was another thread about this...

 

[Blue Scrub]

Yes there is another thread dealing with this article....and yes the article was very very good, other aspiring/current med students should def check it out

 

[Wiggy73]

Thanks for the link. The funny thing is, I just had a health economics exam this afternoon about physicians and hospitals, and the some of the test questions were on the exact topics Gawande addresses. Eerie! But I'm glad to see people are thinking about these difficult but important problems.

 

[reddirtgirl]

there was another thread about this...

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=189436&highlight=Atul+Gawande

 

[javert]

Yes there is another thread dealing with this article....and yes the article was very very good, other aspiring/current med students should def check it out

Which is why I bumped the thread in order to say that there was another athread about the same topic.

😉