Last night I had nothing better to do than stalk Atul Gawande on the web. I watched his interview with Charlie Rose and listened to a couple interviews on NPR but they were all rehashing articles that I've already read. I have his website bookmarked and I'd been meaning to catch up on his articles that I haven't read, since he's a regular writer for The New Yorker. I kept seeing this one article called The Itch and I kept ignoring it but last night I finally decided to print it out (there's no way I'm reading 8 pages worth of text on the computer) and read it. Oh my God! The article was amazing! Yes, the piece was so good it demands two exclamation points in a row. It's a completely fascinating look at the brain's connection to what we feel in our bodies, with a particular emphasis on itching. The man is brilliant, he's so thoughtful, but he's also unbelievably compassionate and moral (you might not get all of that from this one article but, trust me, read his books and you'll see what I mean). I wish Obama would just do a conference on the public health care option and have Atul Gawande explain it to the public. I read a copy of the speech Obama gave to children in schools yesterday, well the ones that we're allowed to listen to it, which is problematic in itself, but Atul Gawande is such a stellar example of a person taking on the responsibility to make himself, our country and the World a better place in which to live. And when you read his writing or listen to his interviews there's not an ounce of self centeredness; he just comes across as such a decent human being and someone worth emulating in whatever small way you can. If I could choose five people, dead or alive, to have a dinner with he's definitely getting a place at the table.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
open love letter to atul gawande
Last night I had nothing better to do than stalk Atul Gawande on the web. I watched his interview with Charlie Rose and listened to a couple interviews on NPR but they were all rehashing articles that I've already read. I have his website bookmarked and I'd been meaning to catch up on his articles that I haven't read, since he's a regular writer for The New Yorker. I kept seeing this one article called The Itch and I kept ignoring it but last night I finally decided to print it out (there's no way I'm reading 8 pages worth of text on the computer) and read it. Oh my God! The article was amazing! Yes, the piece was so good it demands two exclamation points in a row. It's a completely fascinating look at the brain's connection to what we feel in our bodies, with a particular emphasis on itching. The man is brilliant, he's so thoughtful, but he's also unbelievably compassionate and moral (you might not get all of that from this one article but, trust me, read his books and you'll see what I mean). I wish Obama would just do a conference on the public health care option and have Atul Gawande explain it to the public. I read a copy of the speech Obama gave to children in schools yesterday, well the ones that we're allowed to listen to it, which is problematic in itself, but Atul Gawande is such a stellar example of a person taking on the responsibility to make himself, our country and the World a better place in which to live. And when you read his writing or listen to his interviews there's not an ounce of self centeredness; he just comes across as such a decent human being and someone worth emulating in whatever small way you can. If I could choose five people, dead or alive, to have a dinner with he's definitely getting a place at the table.
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4 comments:
is he cute, too?
i think so but he is happily married with 3 kids. he just seems like such a smart, nice guy and he knows so much about healthcare, it just makes me goofy. like i need to write anymore to show what a complete dork i am.
I bumped into your blog and thought you might like to know what Gawande is like as a doctor, my doctor, my surgeon: thorough, thoughtful, respectful, and kind. Once, during an exam, I wasn't paying much attention because I was worried about a surgery my daughter was going to have, in another city, and totally unrelated to my medical problem. I asked him some questions and he took time to answer them and also say that he had confidence in the hospital I was talking about and that the medical staff there would certainly be trained and on the alert for the possibilities I was worried about. He actually stopped my exam for a few minutes to talk to me about it all.
First, I felt comfortable enough with him to ask him, and the way he answered certainly allayed some of my fears. This showed that he does consider the whole person as patient.
Video of A. Gawande (and others) discussing health care costs:
http://www.nejm.org/perspective-roundtable/cost-of-health-care/?query=TOC
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