Atul Gawande

“No one looks at your hands to see how much they shake when you are interviewed to be a surgeon. The physical skills required are no greater than for writing cursive script. If an operation requires so much skill only a few surgeons can do it, you modify the operation to make it simpler.”

“I have always believed that there is nothing greater than a life in rock n' roll - it has to be good rock n' roll - and I still think it is true.”

“Outsiders tend to be the first to recognize the inadequacies of our social institutions. But, precisely because they are outsiders, they are usually in a poor position to fix them.”

“I think the extreme complexity of medicine has become more than an individual clinician can handle. But not more than teams of clinicians can handle.”

“My vantage point on the world is the operating room where I see my patients.”

“The vast majority of doctors really do try to take the money out of their minds. But to provide the best possible care requires using resources in a way that keeps you viable but improves the quality of care.”

“The health-care sector certainly employs more people and more machines than it did. But there have been no great strides in service. In Western Europe, most primary-care practices now use electronic health records and offer after-hours care; in the United States, most don't.”

“The history of American agriculture suggests that you can have transformation without a master plan, without knowing all the answers up front.”