“ We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love. That remains the main problem and paradox for the frail. Many of the things that we want for those we care about are things that we would a… Atul Gawande
“ Health care confronts us with a difficult test. We have never corrected failure in something so deeply embedded in people's lives and in the economy without the pressure of an outright crisis. Atul Gawande
“ Oliver Sacks remains my hero to this day. He was one of the first medical writers I read. The other was Lewis Thomas, who is no longer alive but is just heroic to me. Atul Gawande
“ Every country in the world is battling the rising cost of health care. No community anywhere has demonstrably lowered its health-care costs (not just slowed their rate of increase) by improving medica… Atul Gawande
“ It is not death that the very old tell me they fear. It is what happens short of death—losing their hearing, their memory, their best friends, their way of life. As Felix put it to me, Old age is a co… Atul Gawande
“ Most people are squeamish about saying how much they earn, but in medicine the situation seems especially fraught. Doctors aren't supposed to be in it for the money, and the more concerned a doctor se… Atul Gawande
“ Cost is the spectre haunting health reform. For many decades, the great flaw in the American health-care system was its unconscionable gaps in coverage. Atul Gawande
“ No one teaches you how to think about money in medical school or residency. Yet, from the moment you start practicing, you must think about it. You must consider what is covered for a patient and what… Atul Gawande
“ People say that the most expensive piece of medical equipment is the doctor's pen. It's not that we make all the money. It's that we order all the money. Atul Gawande
“ Our health-care morass is like the problems of global warming and the national debt - the kind of vast policy failure that is far easier to get into than to get out of. Americans say that they want le… Atul Gawande
“ The history of American agriculture suggests that you can have transformation without a master plan, without knowing all the answers up front. Atul Gawande
“ With a DO-CONFIRM checklist, he said, team members perform their jobs from memory and experience, often separately. But then they stop. They pause to run the checklist and confirm that everything that… Atul Gawande
“ [We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not… Atul Gawande
“ The striking thing is that WHO doesn't really have the authority to do any of this. It can't tell governments what to do. It hires no vaccinators, distributes no vaccine. It is a small Geneva bureaucr… Atul Gawande
“ We want progress in medicine to be clear and unequivocal, but of course it rarely is. Every new treatment has gaping unknowns - for both patients and society - and it can be hard to decide what do do… Atul Gawande
“ The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And, in a w… Atul Gawande
“ Life is choices, and they are relentless. No sooner have you made one choice than another is upon you. Atul Gawande
