Over time I learned that there are two very different satisfactions that you can have in your life. One is the satisfaction of becoming skilled at something. It almost doesn't matter what the terrain is. There is a deep, soul-feeding resonance in mastery itself, whether in teaching, writing a complicated software program, coaching a baseball team, or marshalling a group of people to start a new business.

This was not guilt: guilt is what you feel when you have done something wrong. What I felt was shame: I was what was wrong.

Just using a checklist requires [doctors] to embrace different values from ones we've had, like humility, discipline, teamwork.

You know, 97 percent of the time, if you come into a hospital, everything goes well. But three percent of the time, we have major complications.

What about regular professionals, who just want to do what they do as well as they can?

The big thing that's happened is, in the time since the Affordable Care Act has been going on, our medical science has been advancing. We have now genomic data. We have the power of big data about what your living patterns are, what's happening in your body. Even your smartphone can collect data about your walking or your pulse or other things that could be incredibly meaningful in being able to predict whether you have disease coming in the future and help avert those problems.

If the conversation people think is coming is the 'death panel' conversation, that's a total failure.