Why do Doctors Fail?
Atul Gawande explores the nature of imperfection in medicine. How much of failure in medicine is due to ignorance or ineptitude - and what does that mean for medical progress?
Atul Gawande is a practising surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Professor at both the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. He’s well known for his writing on medicine, and his research on medical error and performance.
Among his other roles, he is director of Ariadne Labs, a joint centre for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a global charity reducing unsafe surgery globally. The first lecture, Why do Doctors Fail? will explore the nature of imperfection in medicine. In particular, Gawande will examine how much of failure in medicine remains due to ignorance, and how much is due to ineptitude - and what that means for where medical progress will come from in the future.
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More about Dr Atul Gawande
Find out more about the 2014 Reith Lecturer Watch him talking on the subject Why do doctors fail? and How is medicine going to change in the future. You can also listen to audio clips of Dr Atul Gawande on the intricacy of the human body and misconceptions of global health.
You can also find more information on the Radio 4 website.
Broadcasts
- Tue 25 Nov 201413:05GMTBBC World Service Online
- Sat 29 Nov 201419:05GMTBBC World Service Online
- Mon 29 Dec 201416:32GMTBBC World Service Online
The Reith Lectures on Radio 4
Archive recordings from the BBC's flagship annual lecture series going back to 1948
