I think the extreme complexity of medicine has become more than an individual clinician can handle. But not more than teams of clinicians can handle.

I chose surgery because I thought that perhaps this would make me more like the kind of person I wanted to be.

When I do an operation, it's half a dozen people. When it goes beautifully, it's like a symphony, with everybody playing their part.

When we, doctors, ask patients what their priorities are if time is short, what we do is we use what is available to us - whether it's geriatric care or palliative care or hospice care - to make sure they're living the kind of life that they want to live.

Good checklists, on the other hand are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything--a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps--the ones that even the highly skilled professional using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical.

Are doctors who make mistakes villains? No, because then we all are.

What is the alternative to understanding the complexity of the world?