“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
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
At times, in medicine, you feel you are inside a colossal and impossibly complex machine whose gears will turn for you only… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“Betterment is perpetual labor. The world is chaotic, disorganized, and vexing, and medicine is nowhere spared that reality. To complicate matters, we… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
Most people are squeamish about saying how much they earn, but in medicine the situation seems especially fraught. Doctors aren't supposed to… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“In this work against sickness, we begin not with genetic or cellular interactions, but with human ones. They are what make medicine… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
Having great components is not enough, and yet we've been obsessed in medicine with components. We want the best drugs, the best… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“The pressure remains all in one direction, toward doing more, because the only mistake clinicians seem to fear is doing too little.… — 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
Just using a checklist requires [doctors] to embrace different values from ones we've had, like humility, discipline, teamwork. — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“Technological society has forgotten what scholars call the “dying role” and its importance to people as life approaches its end. People want… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“A large part of the task is helping people negotiate the overwhelming anxiety—anxiety about death, anxiety about suffering, anxiety about loved ones,… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
Culture matters. Of course, if physicians are rewarded or penalized for their service and results, the culture will change. But the key… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“I am leery of suggesting the idea that endings are controllable. No one ever really has control. Physics and biology and accident… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“Expertise is the mantra of modern medicine. In the early twentieth century, you needed only a high school diploma and a one-year… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“One American in seven has no coverage, and one in three younger than sixty-five will lose coverage at some point in the… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
The vast majority of doctors really do try to take the money out of their minds. But to provide the best possible… — 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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“..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 Image
“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 Image
The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s life, — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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