The Striking Thing Is That Who Doesn't

Good Checklists, On The Other Hand Are Precise. They Are Efficient, To The Point, And Easy To Use Even In The Most Difficult Situations. They Do Not Try To Spell Out Everything--a Checklist Cannot Fly A Plane. Instead, They Provide Reminders Of Only The Most Critical And Important Steps--the Ones That Even The Highly Skilled Professional Using Them Could Miss. Good Checklists Are, Above All, Practical.

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.

There Are Times When You Have Sharp Elbows, And People Are Trying To Muscle You Out Of Certain Meetings - Because Then People Could Leak To The Press That You Had A Role In Certain Decisions. I, At Twenty-six, Was Very Impatient And Didn't Know How To Keep My Powder Dry. I Was Running A Team Of Seventy-five People When I Had Never Been A Boss. I Was The Worst Boss Ever.

When We, Doctors, Ask Patients What Their Priorities Are If Time Is Short, What We Do Is We Use What Is Available To Us - Whether It's Geriatric Care Or Palliative Care Or Hospice Care - To Make Sure They're Living The Kind Of Life That They Want To Live.

In Many Ways, The Effort To Study Philosophy Was My Rebellion Away From Medicine. I'm The Son Of Two Indian Immigrant Physicians, So The Natural Path For Me Would Have Been To Become A Doctor. I Ended Up Doing The Master's Degree At Oxford In Politics, Philosophy, And Economics While Already Having A Seat In Medical School. I Was Keeping That As My Escape Hatch. But My Hope Was That I Might Become A Philosopher Or Something Else Entirely.