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1-Page Summary of Better
Overall Summary
Dr. Atul Gawande is a surgeon, writer, and founder of two nonprofits that aim to improve the quality of health care in developing countries. His book Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance explores how situations of risk really work because for Dr. Gawande, the difference between 99% success rate and 99.9% success rate can mean lives saved or lost.
This book is about the practice of medicine, but it also discusses how to live a full and meaningful life. It’s based on essays that were originally written for The New Yorker. Gawande uses examples and research to support his arguments.
The book is divided into three parts: Diligence, Doing Right, and Ingenuity. It examines how humans interact with the world and what their responsibilities to society are. It also explores the pitfalls that occur within the medical field. The author shows how a planned approach will guarantee success for anyone in particular members of the medical community despite seemingly insurmountable odds.
In Better, Gawande also talks about failure. He says that it is a part of life and shouldn’t be feared. Failure leads to growth and development, which eventually lead to success. However, humans are flawed beings who face many obstacles in their journey towards success but can still overcome them with hard work.
Introduction
As a resident, Atul Gawande was assigned to check on a patient who had been admitted but whose exact diagnosis wasn’t clear. The senior resident didn’t follow the schedule as much as he did and ended up saving the woman’s life by paying attention to her needs more than others.
Chapter 1: “On Washing Hands”
The book begins with an explanation of how doctors can become better at their jobs. One important doctor skill is handwashing, which helps to prevent the spread of disease. The book mentions that every year two million Americans acquire a hospital-related infection and 90 000 die from it. This statistic serves as a reminder for doctors to take small tasks seriously because they have big consequences.
A doctor named Ignac Semmelweis figured out that doctors were spreading disease by not washing their hands. However, he didn’t do enough research to prove his theory and enforce the idea effectively. Therefore, while he came up with an amazing idea, it wasn’t implemented properly. You need both the idea and the follow-through to make your ideas work.
Chapter 2: “The Mop Up”
In Chapter 2, Gawande discusses the eradication of polio in India. He uses this discussion to examine diligence as a virtue and how it is important for success. According to Gawande, diligence requires constant action and is difficult because it must be practiced constantly.
To illustrate the importance of diligence, Gawande tells a story about Sunil Bahl, an employee for the World Health Organization. When Bahl learned about a polio outbreak in Southern India, he organized a mop-up campaign to immunize children around new cases of infection. He and his team had to go door-to-door and vaccinate more than 4 million children in three days—an impossible task! However, with diligence and perseverance, doctors such as Bahl were able to curb the epidemic. This incident also reveals that diligence means doing hard work without glamour or recognition.
Chapter 3: “Casualties of War”
In this article, Gawande talks about how medicine is practiced on the battlefield. He says that while firepower has increased, lethality has decreased.
Gawande believes that people who practice medicine in combat need to make a science of performance. He says they should investigate and improve how well they use the knowledge and technologies they already have at hand. Gawande also states that almost banal changes can produce enormous results, especially when medical teams work hard to do all the little things right instead of waiting for scientific breakthroughs.
