Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
by Atul Gawande
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Book Summary Information
Author: Atul GawandeBrand: Baker and Taylor
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-01-22
ISBN: 0312427654
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Picador
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780312427658
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Book Reviews of Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
Book Review: "When the stakes are our lives...we want no one to settle for average."
Summary: 5 Stars
Atul Gawande, in "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance," asks, "What does it take to be good at something in which failure is so easy?" When someone's well-being is at stake, is mere competence enough? The author maintains that a great deal more is needed "to enable every human being to lead a life as long and free of frailty as science will allow." With so much on the line, knowledge is not enough. To do their best, doctors should be conscientious, technically proficient, morally scrupulous, resourceful, and compassionate. The author examines "three core requirements for success in medicine": diligence (attention to detail and avoidance of errors), "to do right," and ingenuity ("thinking anew"). Is a doctor willing to look at a difficult situation in a new light? Can she confront her failures, learn from them, and change? Dr. Gawande presents specific examples of medical professionals meeting a variety of challenges and, in the process, transforming medical care and saving lives.
In this elegantly written book, the author makes the abstract real. He does not merely focus on dramatic events; he also demonstrates how the seemingly mundane can be crucial. One example centers on infection control. Deborah Yokoe, an infectious disease specialist and Susan Marino, a microbiologist, have done their utmost to reduce the spread of infection in their Boston-based hospital. Two million Americans acquire infections every year during their hospital stays and thousands die as a result. One way to cut down on infection in hospitals is for clinicians to carefully and consistently wash their hands. Yokoe and Marino have tried everything to get doctors and nurses to wash. They have posted warning signs, installed new sinks in convenient locations, given rewards to the units with the best rates of compliance, and even issued hygiene report cards. Nothing has worked. Doctors and nurses simply do not take the time to wash their hands as much as they should. As a result, the rates of infection in the hospital remain higher than they should be.
Two other individuals in Pennsylvania, however, came up with innovations that actually made a difference. Peter Perreiah, an industrial engineer, devised an ingenious system that made each hospital room function like a mini-operating room. Jon Lloyd, a surgeon and colleague of Perreiah, promoted the idea of "positive deviance--the idea of building on capabilities people already had rather than telling them how they had to change." By inviting the staff to come up with their own solutions rather than imposing rules from above, "the norms began to shift." One year into the experiment, infection rates dropped precipitously.
Gawande demonstrates time and again that when people rack their brains to come up with answers, they can solve seemingly intractable medical problems. The author's account of the Herculean efforts expended to eradicate polio in India and to save the lives of wounded soldiers in Iraq are fascinating and impressive. Equally engrossing are the sections dealing with best practices in obstetrics and effective treatments for cystic fibrosis. Dr. Gawande's remarks concerning how far physicians should go to keep their patients alive raise intriguing questions without offering facile answers. "In the face of uncertainty, wisdom is to err on the side of pushing, to not give up. But you have to be ready to recognize when pushing is only ego....You have to be ready to recognize when the pushing can turn to harm." The author believes that medical decisions should always be based on the best interests of the patient, and fruitless suffering should be avoided. This is a tough call and wise doctors will not hesitate to consult with their colleagues to get other opinions. My one quibble is that Gawande's segments focusing on doctors' income, malpractice, and the ethics of physician-assisted executions do not fit comfortably in a work about enhancing medical performance.
The bottom line is that "arriving at meaningful solutions is an inevitably slow and difficult process." Common to all successful initiatives is the willingness to face challenges with a determination to do whatever it takes to find remedies. Atul Gawande is a thoughtful and intelligent writer; his graceful prose makes "Better" an absolute pleasure to read. We can only hope that Dr. Gawande's colleagues will pick up on his admirable enthusiasm for behaving more responsibly, creatively, and diligently.
Summary of Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
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 important than in medicine, where lives may be on the line with any decision.
Atul Gawande, the New York Times bestselling author 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).
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