Better Quotes

“Less irritating than soap, alcohol rinses and gels have been in use in Europe for almost two decades but for some reason only recently caught on in the United States. They take far less time to use—only about fifteen seconds or so to rub a gel over the hands and fingers and let it airdry. Dispensers can be put at the bedside more easily than a sink. And at alcohol concentrations of 50 to 95 percent, they are more effective at killing organisms, too. (Interestingly, pure alcohol is not as effective—at least some water is required to denature microbial proteins.)”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“People often look to great athletes for lessons about performance. ... But success in medicine has dimensions that cannot be found on a playing field.”
― Atul Gawande, (Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance) [By: Gawande, Atul] [Apr, 2007]

“doctors need to understand that we are businessmen—nothing less, nothing more—and the sooner we accept this the better.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“It used to be ‘Two hip replacements today—yay!’” he recalled. “Then it became ‘Two hip replacements today—ugh.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“the social dimension turns out to be as essential as the scientific—matters of how casual you should be, how formal, how reticent, how forthright. Also: how apologetic, how self-confident, how money-minded. In this work against sickness, we begin not with genetic or cellular interactions, but with human ones.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“WHAT DOES IT take to be good at something in which failure is so easy, so effortless?”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“Paul O’Neill, the former secretary of the Treasury and CEO of the aluminum giant Alcoa, agreed to take over as head of a regional health care initiative in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And he made solving the problem of hospital infections one of his top priorities.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“...litigation has proved to be a singularly unsatisfactory solution. It is expensive, drawn out, and painfully adversarial. It helps very few people.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“In this work against sickness, we begin not with genetic or cellular interactions, but with human ones. They are what make medicine so complex and fascinating.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“Obstetrics went about improving the same way Toyota and General Electric went about improving: on the fly, but always paying attention to the results and trying to better them. And”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“Whether insurance is provided by the government or by corporations, there is no reason to think that the battles—over the fees charged, the bills rejected, the preapproval contortions—will ever end.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“That’s how a doctor earns money, she told me. It’s a war with insurance, every step of the way.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“The average doctor in a high-risk practice like surgery or obstetrics is sued about once every six years. Seventy percent of the time, the suit is either dropped by the plaintiff or won by the doctor in court. But the cost of defense is high, and when doctors lose, the average jury verdict is half a million dollars. General”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“In this work against sickness, we begin not with genetic or cellular interactions, but with human ones. They are what make medicine so complex and fascinating. How”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“Each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, two million Americans acquire an infection while they are in the hospital. Ninety thousand die of that infection. The”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“When someone has come to you for your expertise and your expertise has failed, what do you have left? You have only your character to fall back upon—and”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“The third requirement for success is ingenuity—thinking”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“The medical officer’s microplan was a sheaf of ragged paper, with marker-drawn maps and penciled-in tables. The first page said that he had recruited twenty-two teams of two vaccinators each to cover a population of 34,144 people. “How do you know this population estimate is right?” Pankaj asked. The officer replied that he’d done a house-to-house survey.”
― Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance