Atul Gawande's Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, is in all ways an exceptional book to read, for the widest variety of audiences. Simply put, there is something in there for everyone. If I had to pick one adjective to pair with this book, I would have to choose "inspirational." Upon completion of this book, the reader will have been exposed to a style of thought they most likely never approached before.
The layout of the book is pretty simple: Gawande separates the book into three different segments. Each of the segments discusses one of three virtues that he believes are necessary ingredients in a man's success in medicine, or in any other field of work. The three virtues are diligence, "doing right," and ingenuity. To help explain the importance of each section, Gawande will list stories relating to each virtue. Of course since the main focus of this book is directed to students who are thinking about pursuing medicine, the stories are all of doctors and their experiences.
When I first began this book I was somewhat skeptical on whether or not I would find it an interesting read. It's safe to say that I was underestimating the sheer strength Gawande has as a writer. Its written in a way that always makes the reader eager to move onto the next chapter and even onto the next virtue. This book makes being a doctor seem like a much more dynamic and complex field of work, in a way that doesn't seem to overwhelm the reader. And the qualities he preaches in this book I feel he displays exceptionally well in his own writing. In one chapter he discusses the importance of always going farther than what's necessary in order to secure perfection, and all throughout the book, he saturates chapters with evidence and strong examples that may seem superfluous but in fact they strengthen the cases he makes even more. Looking back I would not have been as convinced with some of the claims and advice he makes had it not been for that extraordinary amount of evidence he researched.
The strongest point about this book overall was the selection of anecdotes Gawande used to help explain the importance of the three virtues he picked. Just standalone, they all proved to be a thoroughly interesting read, ranging from a story of a group of doctors who were deployed in Iraq during the peak of the war and their experiences in dealing with freshly wounded soldiers coming into their hands at a rate faster than what a top general hospital in the United States would be able to house, all the way to cases of doctors having to deal with inmates on death row and preparing their lethal injections.
I think for someone like me, who is interested in the general field of medicine but can't find a way to bridge the gap between himself and the vast unknown expanse that is the medical world, Better does a very good job of giving a glimpse into what it's really all about. It's like a translator between the common man and the figure so many people revere to a level like that of a superhero. People throw their livelihoods and the livelihoods of their families into the hands of these men, but rarely pause to think about the man himself. Behind the stethoscopes, scrubs and masks. Gawande explores realms that few people would even think was proper to do. Such as the stigma and pressure doctors experience in dealing with naked patients of the opposite sex inside of a closed operating room where no one can see them. Or the issue of their salaries, and how people think doctors don't do it for the money, but how in fact most do. Or where the line is drawn between doing what is right and what is good for business. All these very real issues everyone in the field is facing, Gawande finally revealed to the public like no one before him has.
