- Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande (b. 1965 in
Brooklyn, NY ) is a general and endocrine surgeon atBrigham and Women's Hospital inBoston, Massachusetts and associate director of their Center for Surgery and Public Health. He is also an associate professor at theHarvard School of Public Health and an associate professor of surgery atHarvard Medical School . He has written extensively on medicine and public health for "The New Yorker " and "Slate", pieces which have been collected in his books "Complications" and "Better". [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/contributors/atul_gawande Atul Gawande: Contributors: The New Yorker ] ]Biography
Born to two Indian immigrants, both doctors, Gawande and his sister grew up in
Athens, Ohio . His father runs aurology practice there and his mother is apediatrician . He obtained an undergraduate degree fromStanford University in 1987, was aRhodes scholar (earning a P.P.E. degree fromBalliol College, Oxford in 1989), and later graduated from Harvard Medical School. He also has aMaster of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.As a student Gawande was a volunteer for
Gary Hart 's campaign. As a Rhodes Scholar, he raised money for theAfrican National Congress . After graduation, he joinedAl Gore 's 1988 presidential campaign. He worked as a health-care researcher for CongressmanJim Cooper (D-TN), who was author of a "managed competition" health care proposal for theConservative Democratic Forum . After two years he left medical school to becomeBill Clinton 's health care lieutenant during the 1992 campaign and became a senior adviser in theDepartment of Health and Human Services after Clinton's inauguration. He directed one of the three committees of the Clinton Health Care Task Force, supervising 75 people and defined the benefits packages for Americans and subsidies and requirements for employers. He returned to medical school in 1993 and earned his M.D in 1995. [ [http://www.iht.com/articles/1994/05/30/uo.php Former Policymaker Opts for Hands-On Health Care - International Herald Tribune ] ]Soon after he began his residency, his friend
Jacob Weisberg , editor of "Slate", asked him to contribute to the online magazine. His pieces on the life of a surgical resident caught the eye of the "New Yorker" which published several pieces by him before making him a staff writer in 1998.In addition to his popular writing, Gawande has published studies on topics including military surgery techniques and error in medicine, including in the "
New England Journal of Medicine ". He is also the director of theWorld Health Organization 'sGlobal Patient Safety Challenge . His essays have appeared in "The Best American Essays 2003" and "The Best American Science Writing 2002". His book, "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science" was aNational Book Award finalist in 2002 and is published in over one hundred countries. In 2006 he was named a MacArthur fellow. [ [http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.2070789/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id=%7B8F16CDA4-A6FF-41A8-AE1B-A0EF9E968CE3%7D¬oc=1 MacArthur Fellows 2006. Atul Gawande] ] His second book, "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance", was released in April 2007."Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" has its foundation on virtue based ethics. In "Better", Atul Gawande offers up three virtues that he considers to be most important for success in medicine: diligence, doing right, and ingenuity. Instead of simply describing how these virtues should be used, Gawande presents real people and events where these virtues are expressed in full.
In the medical field, he is a leading expert on the removal of cancerous
endocrine glands . He was also named one of the 20 Most Influential South Asians byNewsweek Magazine . Gawande lives inNewton, Massachusetts and has three children.References
External links
* [http://www.gawande.com Gawande.com]
* [http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/AtulGawande.html Atul Gawande's Profile]
* [http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/now/jun24/gawande.html Gawande delivering HMS class day speech]
* [http://www.brighamandwomens.org/surgery/research/facultypages/GawandeResearch.aspx Dr. Gawande's research profile]
* [http://www.sajaforum.org/2006/09/ditn_atul_gawan.html SAJAforum coverage of MacArthur announcement]
* [http://www.sajaforum.org/2007/04/gawande.html SAJAforum 2007 Q&A with Gawande on publication of new book]
* [http://www.lettersonpages.com/2008/06/better-by-atul-gawande/ Book review of Better at Letters On Pages]
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