We Recruit For Attitude And Train For

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.

What About Regular Professionals, Who Just Want To Do What They Do As Well As They Can?

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.

After Readinf Some Essay On The Nature Of Human Fallibility, I Was Very Aware That We Are The Recipients Of A Huge Amount Of Discovery Over The Last Century. Medicine Exemplifies This. And That Has Transitioned Us From A World In Which People's Lives Were Mostly Governed By Ignorance To One That's Constrained By Ineptitude. A Century Ago, We Didn't Know, For Instance, What Diseases Afflicted Us, What Their Nature Really Was, Or What To Do About Them. And That Has Changed.

Having Great Components Is Not Enough, And Yet We've Been Obsessed In Medicine With Components. We Want The Best Drugs, The Best Technologies, The Best Specialists, But We Don't Think Too Much About How It All Comes Together.