This subject matter seems like it would be dry, checklists were the bane of my existence as a child with a checklist happy mother. But the circumstances they are implemented in are fascinating and anxiety inducing, from the emergency medicine and the operating room to engineering skyscrapers and flying planes. I loved the medical chapters, and was especially glad that the central line kit with all necessary items was invented and being used when my daughter had a med port for a few years. I remember those kits well, and the fact that they are relatively recent in the scope of things is eye opening. Maybe I better make a checklist for cleaning the house now.... ( )

Interesting read

I got this book on a whim and then found it so fascinating. I was so surprised by a book about checklists and how revolutionary they are in life. I couldn’t believe how much they changed the safety of surgery and flight. I really enjoyed this book. ( )

Dr. Gawande's reputation proceeded him, meaning that much of the medical community had already read the NEJM article on the same topic, considered how it applied to subfields of medicine, personal practices, etc. and the reforms espoused had largely been adopted, at least by the American medical community by the time of publication.

Nonetheless, Dr. Gawande's journey to discover why checklists matter, the subtle ways in which they matter and the fields that have instituted them was an interesting, if slightly shallow read. ( )

Slightly repetitive but makes his case well. Great examples and detail. ( )

Book on CD read by John Bedford Lloyd

Subtitle: How to Get Things Right

Gawande became well-known for his original book of essays Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, in which he outlined some of the difficulties faced by modern-day surgeons despite the very best training and equipment. He wrote it while still a resident in training, and followed it up a few years later with Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance where he described more of his observations and shared his thoughts and questions for continued improvement. THIS book is his third.

He explains how a tool used in many industries to ensure that complex procedures are carried out in a “best practices” way consistently might be (and has been) applied to the complexities of modern medicine. What is this tool? A checklist.

I loved his earlier books partly because I am a total geek about medicine. So this book was slow to get my attention because he wrote about pilots and construction managers in some detail before getting around to applying that checklist tool to medicine. But when he began to relate the world-wide study undertaken under the auspices of the World Health Organization, I began to feel his enthusiasm for the subject, and his (and others’) excitement over the early results.

Still, for me at least, it seemed to be missing some of the “special sauce” that his earlier works (and his later work: Being Mortal”) had. I expect that this is partly due to the fact that this book is much more clearly aimed at the medical professional, and was, therefore, less personal to me. Still, you can bet I’ll be asking my surgeon / anesthetist / nurse about their use of a checklist the next time I have to have any surgical procedure!

John Bedford Lloyd did a fine job of narrating the audiobook, although I think the book might be best appreciated in text format. ( )