I learned about a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn't one of them.

I learned about a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn't one of them.

Arriving at an acceptance of one's mortality is a process, not an epiphany.

Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance.

One of the reasons people might be fallible, why we might fail to do what we try to do isignorance, that we have a limited understanding of the laws of the world - the physical laws that govern the world and of all the particulars of the world upon which those laws work. And then there's ineptitude, meaning that the knowledge is available, but individuals fail to apply it correctly. The third source is "necessary fallibility." That is, we're never going to be omniscient, there is some knowledge that we will simply never achieve, and there are limits to what we will be able to do.

In one study, old people assigned to a geriatrics team stayed independent for far longer, and were admitted to the hospital less.

Making systems work is the great task of my generation of physicians and scientists. But I would go further and say that making systems work - whether in healthcare, education, climate change, making a pathway out of poverty - is the great task of our generation as a whole.