My vantage point on the world is the operating room where I see my patients. — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“According to Block, about two-thirds of patients are willing to undergo therapies they don’t want if that is what their loved ones… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“Medicine’s ground state is uncertainty. And wisdom—for both patients and doctors—is defined by how one copes with it. This” — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
When we, doctors, ask patients what their priorities are if time is short, what we do is we use what is available… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
We've created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets - and have only the rudiments of a system… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
Don’t let yourself be. Find something new to try, something to change. Count how often it succeeds and how often it doesn’t.… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“In other words, our decision making in medicine has failed so spectacularly that we have reached the point of actively inflicting harm… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“In the United States, 25 percent of all Medicare spending is for the 5 percent of patients who are in their final… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
As economists have often pointed out, we pay doctors for quantity, not quality. As they point out less often, we also pay… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“We want progress in medicine to be clear and unequivocal, but of course it rarely is. Every new treatment has gaping unknowns… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, my patients will not even be postponed. Another surgeon would step in and take… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
I talked to over two hundred patients and family members about their experiences with aging, serious illnesses, and the big unfixables. But… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
Once you start to ask patients about their priorities, you discover what they're living for. Once you uncover that, it helps you,… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“We know the dance moves. You agree to become a patient, and I, the clinician, agree to try to fix you, whatever… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“The soaring cost of health care has become the greatest threat to the long-term solvency of most advanced nations, and the incurable… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“There is a saying about surgeons, meant as a reproof: "Sometimes wrong; never in doubt." But this seemed to me their strength.… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“The core predicament of medicine - the thing that makes being a patient so wrenching, being a doctor so difficult, and being… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“The important question isn't how to keep bad physicians from harming patient; it's how to keep good physicians from harming patients. Medical… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
Don’t let yourself be. Find something new to try, something to change. Count how often it succeeds and how often it doesn’t. Write about… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
“Wilson spent several days camped out in one government office after another until she had secured an exemption. Unbelievably, she and her husband cleared… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
What is needed, however, isn't just that people working together be nice to each other. It is discipline. Discipline is hard--harder than trustworthiness and… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
“8. Chapter 4 describes the birth of the assisted-living facility concept (Park Place), designed by Keren Wilson to provide her disabled mother, Jessie, with… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
When we lived in a society where we had large families that lived together, especially in agricultural societies like my grandfather and father grew… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
My biggest fear, that 27 percent of Americans under 65 have an existing health condition that, without the protections of the Affordable Care Act,… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
“..how we seek to spend our time may depend on how much time we perceive ourselves to have. When you are young and healthy,… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
“I cannot pretend he escaped unscathed. The extended period of low blood pressure damaged an optic nerve and left him essentially blind in one… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s life, — Atul Gawande Copy Share
“an average of $94,000 during the last year of life with a metastatic breast cancer. Our medical system is excellent at trying to stave… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
“we need practice to get good at what we do. There is one difference in medicine, though: it is people we practice upon.” — Atul Gawande Copy Share
People underestimate the importance of dilligence as a virtue. No doubt it has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems. It is… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
Developing a skill is painful, though. It is difficult. And that's part of the satisfaction. You will only find meaning in what you struggle… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
Just look at the list of who the lowest-paid people are. Pediatricians are at the bottom. You would also look at internists. You would… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
“When Felix came to this crossroads, the orthopedic shoe to drop wasn’t his. It was Bella’s. Year by year, I witnessed the progression in… — Atul Gawande Copy Share
