The Checklist Manifesto_ How to Get Things Right - Atul Gawande [83]
At the Harvard School of Public Health, the trio of William Berry, Tom Weiser, and Alex Haynes have been the steel columns of the surgery checklist work. The WHO Safe Surgery program I describe in this book also depended on Abdel-Hadi Breizat, Lord Ara Darzi, E. Patchen Dellinger, Teodoro Herbosa, Sidhir Joseph, Pascience Kibatala, Marie Lapitan, Alan Merry, Krishna Moorthy, Richard Reznick, and Bryce Taylor, the principal investigators at our eight study sites around the world; Bruce Barraclough, Martin Makary, Didier Pittet, and Iskander Sayek, the leaders of our scientific advisory group, as well as the many participants in the WHO Safe Surgery Saves Lives study group; Martin Fletcher and Lord Naren Patel at the National Patient Safety Agency in the U.K.; Alex Arriaga, Angela Bader, Kelly Bernier, Bridget Craig, Priya Desai, Rachel Dyer, Lizzie Edmondson, Luke Funk, Stuart Lipsitz, Scott Regenbogen, and my colleagues at the Brigham and Women’s Center for Surgery and Public Health; and the MacArthur Foundation.
I am deeply indebted to the many experts named throughout the book whose generosity and forbearance helped me explore their fields. Unnamed here are Jonathan Katz, who opened the door to the world of skyscraper building; Dutch Leonard and Arnold Howitt, who explained Hurricane Katrina to me; Nuno Alvez and Andrew Hebert, Rialto’s sous chefs, who let me invade their kitchen; Eugene Hill, who sent me the work of Geoff Smart; and Marcus Semel, the research fellow in my group who analyzed the data from Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates showing the complexity of clinical work in medicine and the national data showing the frequency of death in surgery. In addition, Katy Thompson helped me with the research and fact-checking behind my New Yorker article “The Checklist,” which this book grew out of.
Lastly, we come to those without whom my life in writing and research and surgery would be impossible. Elizabeth Morse, my administrative director, has proved irreplaceable, lending a level head, around-the-clock support, and continually wise counsel. Michael Zinner, the chairman of my surgery department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Arnie Epstein, the chairman of my health policy and management department at the Harvard School of Public Health, have backed me in this project as they have for many others over the last decade and more. David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, has been nothing but kind and loyal, keeping me on staff through this entire period. I could not be more fortunate to have such extraordinary people behind me.
Most important, however, are two final groups. There are my patients, both those who have let me tell their stories here and those who have simply trusted me to try to help with their care. I have learned more from them than from anyone else. And then there is my family. My wife, Kathleen, and children, Hunter, Hattie, and Walker, tend to suffer the brunt of my mutating commitments and enthusiasms. But they have always found ways to make room for my work, to share in it, and to remind me that it is not everything. My thanks to them are boundless.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Atul Gawande is the author of Better and Complications. A MacArthur Fellow, a general and endocrine 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, he also leads the World Health Organization’s Safe Surgery Saves Lives program. He lives with his wife and three children in Newton, Massachusetts.