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Atul Gawande: Physician, Surgeon and Writer

Curator: Aviva Lev Ari, PhD, RN

Article ID #188: Atul Gawande: Physician, Surgeon and Writer. Published on 10/18/15

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Atul Gawande: Surgeon, Writer, Epidemiologist, Health Outcomes Researcher

Eric J. Topol, MD: Editor’s Note on The Young Surgeon

Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, wears many hats, including that of a surgeon, researcher, journalist, and author. In this segment of Medscape One-on-One, Dr. Gawande talks with Eric J. Topol, MD, about what inspires him, his plans for the future, and why he’s secretly a frustrated rock singer.

WATCH the INTERVIEW of December 06, 2013 on VIDEO

Eric Topol on Medscape > Medscape One-on-One

Atul Gawande on the Secrets of a Puzzle-Filled Career

Eric J. Topol, MD, Atul Gawande, MD, MPH

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/815241?nlid=41903_2105&src=wnl_edit_medp_card&uac=93761AJ&spon=2

Atul Gawande is a surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and is Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation. He is Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. And he is also co-founder and chairman of Lifebox, an international not-for-profit implementing systems and technologies to reduce surgical deaths globally.

Soon after he began his residency, his friend Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate, asked him to contribute to the online magazine. His pieces on the life of a surgical resident caught the eye of The New Yorker which published several pieces by him before making him a staff writer in 1998.

A June 2009 New Yorker essay by Gawande^[12] compared the health care of two towns in Texas to show why health care was more expensive in one town compared to the other. Using the town of McAllen, Texas, as an example, it argued that a revenue-maximizing businessman-like culture (which can provide substantial amounts of unnecessary care) was an important factor in driving up costs, unlike a culture of low-cost high-quality care as provided by the Mayo Clinic and other efficient health systems.

Ezra Klein of The Washington Post called it “the best article you’ll see this year on American health care—why it’s so expensive, why it’s so poor, [and] what can be done.”^[13] The article was cited by Pres. Barack Obama during Obama’s attempt to get health care reform legislation passed by the United States Congress. The article “made waves”^[14] and according to Senator Ron Wyden, the article “affected [Obama’s] thinking dramatically”, and was shown to a group of senators by Obama, who said, “This is what we’ve got to fix.”^[15] After reading the New Yorkerarticle, Warren Buffett‘s long-time business partner Charlie Mungermailed a check to Gawande in the amount of $20,000 as a thank you to Dr. Gawande for providing something so socially useful.^[16] Gawande donated the $20,000 to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Surgery and Public Health.^[17]

In addition to his popular writing, Gawande has published studies on topics including military surgery techniques and error in medicine, included in the New England Journal of Medicine. He is also the director of theWorld Health Organization‘s Global Patient Safety Challenge. His essays have appeared in The Best American Essays 2003, The Best American Science Writing 2002, The Best American Science Writing 2009 andBest American Science and Nature Writing 2011.

He has been a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine since 1998. He has written three bestselling books: Complications, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2002; Better, which was selected as one of the ten best books of 2007 by Amazon.com; and The Checklist Manifesto. He has won two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on health care, a MacArthur Fellowship, and he has been named one of the world’s hundred most influential thinkers by Foreign Policy and TIME.

http://gawande.com/about

RESEARCH by Dr. Atul Gawande

by Atul Gawande 

In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51C9yK9VzzL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg