Implications By Atul Gawande Summary

Mistakes are inevitable but it is what is done with those mistakes that determines whether or not one is a good doctor. Practicing is what doctors do in order to learn, one cannot learn if they are not practicing. When one practices they will make mistakes in order to become a better doctor. In the book Complications by Atul Gawande, Gawande gives his personal accounts of his seven year residency and the anecdotes from other doctor's careers to support the sundry of arguments he makes, the most prominent being that practice leads to more success and less mistakes. Going back to practice leading to less mistakes, there is a major flaw with practicing that Gawande pointed out.
The problem that arises with doctors and surgeons needing to practice to be perfect is that they must practice on people in order to master a task and get it right, which that may …show more content…
From then on, Goodman would be more harmful than helpful. To show the harm that Goodman had caused, Gawande interviewed Goodman and some of Goodman’s colleagues. In one example, the reader learns about Mrs. D, a former patient of Goodman’s, who came in due to fluid swelling in her knee. He operated on her leg and removed the fluid, but he did not do so properly. A couple days after the surgery, Mrs. D came back in because the pain in her knee had still been there and the condition had gotten worse. This is where Goodman made his mistake, he denied her request for a follow up and said that she was just complaining about the pain. This accusation led to permanent damage of her knee. The problem with this mistake was not the fact that he had made a careless mistake, it was the fact that he failed to fix this carelessness and went on to make even more careless mistakes in order to save time and energy. By doing this, Goodman exemplifies the difference between a good doctor, one who goes back and fixes his errors, and a bad doctor, one who knows something is wrong but does nothing to correct