The nurse told him he ought to read the research on accidents in medicine. It was amazing how many people were operated on inappropriately in the United States annually, tens of thousands at the time, she said. In particular, she told him to read the Atlantic articles on airline crashes and the literature on medical mistakes. Later, he did in fact read her recommendations, but on that day, when Websdale entered the surgical waiting room, he saw all these people on gurneys who had Xs over one eye or the other. “This was a simple remedy,” he said years later to a roomful of people at a video
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