Better: A Surgeon's Notes On Performance

Description

National BestsellerThe struggle to perform well is universal: each of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives may be on the line with any decision.Atul Gawande, the "New York Times" bestselling author of Complications, examines, in riveting accounts of medical failure and triumph, how success is achieved in this complex and risk-filled profession. At once unflinching and compassionate, "Better" is an exhilarating journey, narrated by "arguably the best nonfiction doctor-writer around" ("Salon.com").

Reviews

""Better "is a masterpiece, a series of stories set inside the four walls of a hospital that end up telling us something unforgettable about the world outside."--Malcolm Gladwell, author of "Blink""" "Atul Gawande's insightful book illuminates the challenging choices members of the profession face every day."--Susan Salter Reynolds, "Los Angeles"" Times""" "Remarkably honest and human accounts . . . describing professional moments of fear, guilt, embarrassment, and humor . . . Rich in fascinating detail.""--The Economist""" "It's hard to think of a writer working today who makes such good use of man's quest to avoid pain and death. Atul Gawande is not only adding to the small shelf of books by doctors that every layman should read. He's using medicine to help anyone who hopes to do anything better."--Michael Lewis, author of "The Blind Side""" "Gawande . . . manages to capture medicine in all of its complex and chaotic glory, and to put it, still squirming with life, down on the page. . . . With this book Gawande inspires all of us, doctor or not, to be better."--Pauline W. Chen, "The New York Times Book Review" "Gawande is unassuming in every way, and yet his prose is infused with steadfast determination and hope. If society is the patient here, I can't think of a better guy to have our back."--Gail Caldwell, "The Boston Globe" "This is a book about failure: how it happens, how we learn from it, how we can do better. Although its focus is medicine, its message is for everybody. . . . It has already been described as a modern masterpiece--and so it is."--Jeremy Lawrence, "The Independent "(UK)"" "I found I had been gripping the book so hard that my fingers hurt. . . . It calls to mind one of the great classics of medical literature, Mikhail Bulgakov's "A Country Doctor's Notebook." Few modern authors could stand that comparison, but Gawande can."--John Carey, "The Sunday Times "(UK)

Author description

Atul Gawande, a 2006 MacArthur Fellow, is a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for "The New Yorker," and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. His first book, "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science," was a "New York Times" bestseller and a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award. Gawande lives with his wife and three children in Newton, Massachusetts.