As economists have often pointed out, we pay doctors for quantity, not quality. As they point out less often, we also pay them as individuals, rather than as members of a team working together for their patients. Both practices have made for serious problems.
Atul GawandeDonโt let yourself be. Find something new to try, something to change. Count how often it succeeds and how often it doesnโt. Write about it. Ask a patient or a colleague what they think about it. See if you can keep the conversation going.
Atul GawandeWriting lets you step back and think through a problem. Even the angriest rant forces the writer to achieve a degree of thoughtfulness.
Atul GawandeNo travel ban or quarantine will seal a country completely. Even if travel could be reduced by eighty per cent-itself a feat-models predict that new transmissions would be delayed only a few weeks. Worse, it would only drive an increase in the number of cases at the source. Health-care workers who have fallen ill would not be able to get out for treatment, and the international health personnel needed to quell the outbreak would no longer be able to go in.
Atul Gawande