8. Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto

[pauraque]

I used to work at a greeting card store that stood between a coffee shop and a smoothie place. We had a sign asking customers not to bring their drinks inside, because too many people had spilled them all over the cards, but often people didn't see the sign or ignored it

Comments

[sibilance7]

This book sounds utterly fascinating - thanks for posting it here! I don't read a lot of nonfiction (other than lit theory for school), but I may have to check this one out.

[pauraque]

There's an art to making popular nonfiction readable while still being accurate, and Gawande has it down.

[tala_tale]

He really, really does, doesn't he? I love his work.

[holyschist]

His other two books (Better and Complications) are some of the best medical writing I've read. He's a fantastic writer.

[browngirl]

You have reinforced my desire to read this book. *bumps it up my list*

[pauraque]

I wasn't planning to read it, but my girlfriend had it out from the library for herself and I ended up reading it too. She has good taste. ;)

[rsadelle]

Ooh, thank you for this. I love Gawande's pieces in The New Yorker, and I keep forgetting to put one of his books on my to-read list. This sounds like a good one for that list!

[pauraque]

I think I started to read one of his books years ago at the bookstore but then had to leave. I wish I'd just bought it then!

[seabookmonger]

Loved this book and his others too. Note that his OR always sounds pretty multiethnic and that he respects the nurses. Hope we pay attention to what he's saying in the New Yorker about health care reform.

[pauraque]

I rarely read magazines, was this in a recent New Yorker? Or available online perhaps?

[seabookmonger]

Yes, here it is: AGawande

More articles, including one on care at the end of life:
More

I'm going to post on POC but another great, great book is Siddhartha Mukherjee's Emperor of All Maladies. Here's a biography of cancer that's a page turner. A must read for beleaguered grad students also, for what it says about researchers trying to break new ground. It helped me come to terms with the death of a friend who died of a virulent form of breast cancer, but that isn't really why I read it. Can't recommend it more highly. A very different writer than Gawande with a very different project. Love them both.

[pauraque]

Sweet, thank you!

[buria_q]

thanks for the review and the funny personal anecdote. passing it on to mom, she's an anesthesiologist who's struggled a lot with her workplace culture.

[pauraque]

The book has a lot of discussion about the importance of respect and teamwork among surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists. It sounds like some individuals choose to foster it, but the overall culture of medicine discourages it, sadly.