40 pages • 1 hour read
Atul GawandeThe Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande is a surgeon specializing in the endocrine system and cancer. He is also a Harvard Medical School professor. Gawande uses his insider perspective as he examines some of the problems in the current health system, specifically avoidable complications from surgery. He published The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right in 2009, just after he had been requested by the World Health Organization (WHO) to help find ways to limit unsafe surgical practices all over the world. The WHO had noted a remarkable increase in surgeries and a large number of people suffering from surgical complications—many of which were avoidable. Limited by a lack of adequate resources, Gawande began looking for low-tech solutions and discovered the simple checklist as a potential solution. The Checklist Manifesto is Gawande’s third book, with Complications (2002) and Better (2007) preceding it. As the titles of his first two books suggest, Gawande’s work is focused on problem-solving in the medical field. While his first two works are more exploratory in nature, The Checklist Manifesto is argument-driven: His main purpose is to persuade, while his secondary purpose is to inform. Since The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande has written a fourth book called Being Mortal (2014). Gawande is also a contributing writer for The New Yorker.
Methodological Context: Balancing Anecdotes and Data
The Checklist Manifesto is a thesis-driven book: Gawande presents a problem and poses a solution that could solve the problem. The book is meant to be persuasive, and the intended primary audience is for those in the medical profession. Gawande often frames his main points with anecdotes. He tells a story, uncovers an insight, and then provides connections to his own profession. However, he reaches out to those outside his profession as well, targeting industries such as aviation, construction, and finance. Gawande examines how these industries use checklists, and likewise provides evidence for their successful implementation. He uses data to great effect in the book. When he mentions the prevalence of mistakes in surgical procedures, he supports the claim with numbers, and oftentimes, these numbers are striking and make his case more compelling. Though Gawande’s voice is adamant, it’s not condescending. His intention is not to criticize his profession for its own sake—rather, his goal is to challenge outdated structures and present solutions. Gawande is far from impersonal, framing surgical care as a benefit to all; while there are problems in the medical field, he believes surgical care is an honorable profession. Overall, he brings the reader along with him on his journey to discover why checklists are so effective, how they successfully function in other industries, and why the medical field should embrace their use.
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