Atul Gawande’s Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance tells the reader about Gawande’s experience while a doctor. Atul Gawande is a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Both, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and an associate professor at Harvard Medical school and the Harvard School of Public Health. Gawande is most clearly an accomplished person, but being this accomplished is enough for him. He wants to be better, he desires to make improvements to his life to benefit those around him. Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance is about not being satisfied with good enough, but trying for better. Better is split up into three different sections: “Diligence,” “Doing Right,” and “Ingenuity” with a total of 11 essays.
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Gawande asks the reader an incredible number of questions, but does not give the answers to these questions. This required a lot of self-reflection on my part as a reader. In “Mop Up,” Gawande and a doctor named Pankaj are traveling through a village in India and surveying the area for cases of polio. They are frequently asked about their purpose of eradicating polio, rather than focusing on fixing the sewage system or addressing malnutrition. This is an important point because it shows where priorities lie. This question is brutally honest, there have been problems with undernourishment and sewage for years, but just one case of polio causes a full investigation. While reading this section, I could relate to the standpoint of the villagers and from the standpoint of Dr. Pankaj. I felt this way because I too would get upset if more measures and infrastructure were not being set in place to prevent the further spread of polio, but from the viewpoint of Dr. Pankaj I feel that eradicating and vaccinating every child would be better for the community. This challenge is something that I could face, if I decide to get involved with global health initiatives outside of the United States. My views have been changed in for the better. I now feel more motivated to try for more and not be satisfied with just enough. I know that my future is in my hands and I feel compelled to make the most out of my every waking second to achieve my dreams of becoming a future physician. Even making the smallest change in my lifestyle and work ethic could have a significant effect on my life. For example, completing a homework assignment on the same that I receive it would result in better comprehension and application of the
Gawande asks the reader an incredible number of questions, but does not give the answers to these questions. This required a lot of self-reflection on my part as a reader. In “Mop Up,” Gawande and a doctor named Pankaj are traveling through a village in India and surveying the area for cases of polio. They are frequently asked about their purpose of eradicating polio, rather than focusing on fixing the sewage system or addressing malnutrition. This is an important point because it shows where priorities lie. This question is brutally honest, there have been problems with undernourishment and sewage for years, but just one case of polio causes a full investigation. While reading this section, I could relate to the standpoint of the villagers and from the standpoint of Dr. Pankaj. I felt this way because I too would get upset if more measures and infrastructure were not being set in place to prevent the further spread of polio, but from the viewpoint of Dr. Pankaj I feel that eradicating and vaccinating every child would be better for the community. This challenge is something that I could face, if I decide to get involved with global health initiatives outside of the United States. My views have been changed in for the better. I now feel more motivated to try for more and not be satisfied with just enough. I know that my future is in my hands and I feel compelled to make the most out of my every waking second to achieve my dreams of becoming a future physician. Even making the smallest change in my lifestyle and work ethic could have a significant effect on my life. For example, completing a homework assignment on the same that I receive it would result in better comprehension and application of the