Gawande's exploration of failure and rescue in medicine

Failure and Rescue

Gawande's post begins with the story of 87-year-old Mrs. C. The author tells this remarkable story to demonstrate how to handle risk to minimize failure and maximize success. Mrs. C's life was saved because a young surgeon's suggestion of further tests and scans were not ignored. Despite the fact that the chief surgeon did not really believe anything was wrong, he nevertheless recognized that he could be wrong. This recognition is what saved Mrs. C's life.

Another example the author uses to demonstrate his point is the BP oil spill of 2010. In contrast to Mrs. C's surgery, there was a general failure to recognize the seriousness of the situation even after it was discovered that something was amiss. This is the main reason for the extent of the disaster, which connects to the main point of the article. This main point is that, in order to minimize risk in any profession or any area of life, individuals and teams need to focus on rescue rather than failure.

Important Ideas

The most critical skill a surgeon must learn is to deal with complexity and uncertainty.

Surgeons learn to make judgments and take responsibility for their decisions.

We all face complexity and uncertainty, regardless of profession or living conditions or profession.

Taking risk is important, since this is what creates progress, even if failure is a high possibility.

For surgeons, a certain way of taking risk is important: Minimizing risk through specialization, planning, and technology.

Only by taking risks did surgery progress towards what it is today; a safe and effective intervention in the case of serious conditions.

Some hospitals nevertheless still have particularly high death rates, because they "fail to rescue, as found by researchers at the University of Michigan.

There are three failures to avoid: Choosing the wrong plan, an inadquate plan, or no plan at all.

Risk can be significantly reduced by recognizing that things sometimes go wrong, and that they can go seriously wrong.

Failure can be significantly reduced by being prepared when things do go wrong and to focus on the plan to rescue what can still be saved as soon as the disaster is recognized.

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