Hero worship

There are few physician-writers who I admire more than Atul Gawande. I seriously considered driving through a blizzard to have the opportunity to shake his hand and obtain his signature. And I would have done it if I had gotten out at a decent hour... and they hadn't closed the freeway.

To all of those in the medical profession, I strongly recommend that you pick up a copy of his book Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science and then following it up with reading Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance. Dr. Gawande has the amazing ability of presenting a balanced argument to many sides of a complex issue, and yet still guiding you to the conclusion that he wanted.

To those of you not in the medical profession, well, I recommend that you pick them up as well. I had my friends read Complications for our monthly book club and they loved it. If you want to get a good introduction to some of his writings, he has a selection that appeared in The New Yorker linked to on his website. I highly recommend "The Way We Age Now" and I recommend printing it out and giving it to the elderly people in your life.

Recently, Dr. Gawande has been the guest opinion commentator at The New York Times. His views on the problems of our health care system are well worth a read and careful contemplation. Unfortunately, you can only access them if you have a subscription to the Times. Luckily for you, I scrounged around the internet and found links to the articles.

The Power of Negative Thinking
Can This Patient Be Saved
Curing the System (which along with his review of Sicko is one of the best commentaries on the complexity involved in health care reform.
Bad Medicine Sneaking In
Doctors, Drugs and the Poor
Let's Talk About Sex
Rethinking Old Age
A Katrine Health Care System
The Obama Health Plan

Happy reading!