Atwul Gawande is a surgeon and author from New York. After graduating from the University of Oxford he went on to join the presidential campaign for Al Gore. During his medical and political career he also began writing for prestigious magazines, such as The New Yorker. Here is a list of some of his greatest quotes of all time.
“An audience is a community. The published word is a declaration of membership in that community and also of a willingness to contribute something meaningful to it.”
“Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes Diligence.”
“Betterment is perpetual labor. The world is chaotic, disorganized, and vexing, and medicine is nowhere spared that reality.”
“Doctors quickly learn that how much they make has little to do with how good they are. It largely depends on how they handle the business side of their practice.”
“Expertise is the mantra of modern medicine.”
“I have always believe that there is nothing greater than a life in rock n’ roll – it has to be good rock n’ roll – and I still think it is true.”
“I write because it’s my way of finding cool ideas, thinking through hard problems and things I don’t understand, and getting better at something.”
“If I became just a brain in a jar, as long as I can communicate back and forth with people, that would be okay with me.”
Congrats @mindykaling on your new book #whynotme. And thx for letting me interview u in Boston tonite. Such a blast. pic.twitter.com/zuCYeYrrOc
— Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) September 16, 2015
“If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, my patients will not even be postponed. Another surgeon would step in and take over. The reason to do research and writing is that it at least makes
me feel not entirely replaceable. If I didn’t write, I don’t know if I would do surgery.”
“If there is a credo in practical medicine, it is that the important thing is to be sensible.”
“International organizations are fond of grand-sounding pledges to rid the planet of this or that menace. They nearly always fail, however. The world is too vast and too various to
submit to dictates from on high.”
“Man is fallible, but maybe men are less so.”
“Michael Jordan always had to wear University of North Carolina boxer shorts under his Chicago Bulls uniform.”
“My vantage point on the world is the operating room where I see my patients.”
“No matter what measures are taken, doctors will sometimes falter, and it isn’t reasonable to ask that we achieve perfection. What is reasonable is to ask that we never cease to aim
for it.”
“No one teaches you how to think about money in medical school or residency. Yet, from the moment you start practicing, you must think about it. You must consider what is covered for
a patient and what is not.”
Special thanks to @RiversCuomo for inviting me along. #amazing pic.twitter.com/V2c0hLwV0x
— Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) October 27, 2014
“One American in seven has no coverage, and one in three younger than sixty-five will lose coverage at some point in the next two years. These are people who aren’t poor or old enough
“to qualify for government programs but whose jobs aren’t good enough to provide benefits either.”
“Our ideas of what our priorities are shift as we come face to face with some of the struggles.”
“Pain is a symphony – a complex response that includes not just a distinct sensation but also motor activity, a change in emotion, a focusing of attention, a brand-new memory.”
“Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coordination.”
“The history of American agriculture suggest that you can have transformation without a master plan, without knowing all the answers up front.”
“This is the reality of intensive care: at any point, we are as apt to harm as we are to heal.”
“To become a doctor, you spend so much time int he tunnels of preparation – head down, trying not to screw up, trying to make it from one day to the next – that it is a shock to find
yourself at the other end, with someone shaking your hand and asking how much money you want to make.”
.@CitizenCohn Health policy wonks in the house #GoSox pic.twitter.com/lbessHwo
— Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) July 7, 2012
“We always hope for the easy fix: the one simple change that will erase a problem in a stroke. But few things in life work this way. Instead, success requires making a hundred small
steps go right, one after the other, no slipups, no goofs, everyone pitching it.”
“We want perfection without practice. Yet everyone is harmed if no one is trained for the future.”
“You can’t make a recipe for something as complicated as surgery. Instead, you can make a recipe for how to have a team that’s prepared for the unexpected.”
“You may not control life’s circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.”
In this compelling video from the New Yorker Festival, Atwul Gawande discusses his thoughts on living and death.
Thank you you taking to the time to read these 27 wonderful Atwul Gawande quotes.
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