Complications
by Atul Gawande
Gawande as a surgical resident writing about fallibility, mystery and uncertainty: how surgeons learn on patients, why good doctors go bad, and what it means to decide under uncertainty. It is honest about error in a way almost no professional writing is.
Read it if…
you want to understand expertise, error and learning from someone inside a high-stakes craft.
Skip it if…
you are squeamish.
Three things you will actually use
- Expertise is built on supervised error.
- Good people fail; design for it.
- Uncertainty is the normal state of decisions.
Do this first
Read 'Education of a Knife' and think about how your field lets novices learn.
Our verdict
Honest about error.
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