Just finished reading the book "Checklist Manifesto" by Dr. Atul Gawande. The author is a specialized surgeon practising in Brigham's and Women Hospital, Boston. The book, in essence, elaborates the importance of having a checklist in routine practice, especially in situations where the stakes are higher - like flying an airplane or surgery. He describes how he got the idea of having a checklist for surgery and how such a checklist is already in practice in several fields - from an artist performance, restaurant chef to aviation. In aviation, such a checklist has been in practice since 1930s. He takes us through his initial trial of checklist in surgery and how he failed, later how he got the checklist fine tuned and made better taking inspiration from aviation. Dr. Gawande gives a very detailed note on several case histories in both aviation and in surgery. The narrative style with which he tells the story is interesting and got me hooked. Some of the surgeries he described in the initial few chapters - thrilling!
Making an error and forgetting about having made the error is common. Having a checklist helps in accepting that fact and helps in taking precautionary steps the next time. The examples from investing - Mohnish Pabrai, Guy Spier and categories of investors in the venture capital area depict how having a checklist helped the investor prevent errors and in several occasions making faster investment decisions.
The author takes us through the WHO initative on preventing the avoidable errors, checklist proposal and a test trial run in hospitals in 8 different cities across the world for 3 months and how having a checklist helped reducing surgery related complications and deaths significantly. The way he looked for the counter evidence once he got the initial reports of the test trials is an antidote to typical confirmation-bias. He goes and analyses whether the surgeries in trial period is less complicated, whether there is a Hawthorne effect etc.
In the process he meets several people - a restaurateur, a construction site builder / architect, investors, aviation experts. He gives a complete narrative of a fine dining restaurant with several dishes is managed for an evening dinner for about 150 guests, how a high-storied building is constructed - work alignment and communication being the key, how team work becomes very crucial in surgery and aviation and how the checklists are designed to improve communication and team work.
The author is a surgeon, but the intricacies of account on building construction and aviation, where enough time spent in the book makes us go to the construction site and also fly with the crew and passengers and experience the thud of aircraft crash landing and the chillness of the icy water after one such aircraft landed on the water.
Making an error and forgetting about having made the error is common. Having a checklist helps in accepting that fact and helps in taking precautionary steps the next time. The examples from investing - Mohnish Pabrai, Guy Spier and categories of investors in the venture capital area depict how having a checklist helped the investor prevent errors and in several occasions making faster investment decisions.
The author takes us through the WHO initative on preventing the avoidable errors, checklist proposal and a test trial run in hospitals in 8 different cities across the world for 3 months and how having a checklist helped reducing surgery related complications and deaths significantly. The way he looked for the counter evidence once he got the initial reports of the test trials is an antidote to typical confirmation-bias. He goes and analyses whether the surgeries in trial period is less complicated, whether there is a Hawthorne effect etc.
In the process he meets several people - a restaurateur, a construction site builder / architect, investors, aviation experts. He gives a complete narrative of a fine dining restaurant with several dishes is managed for an evening dinner for about 150 guests, how a high-storied building is constructed - work alignment and communication being the key, how team work becomes very crucial in surgery and aviation and how the checklists are designed to improve communication and team work.
The author is a surgeon, but the intricacies of account on building construction and aviation, where enough time spent in the book makes us go to the construction site and also fly with the crew and passengers and experience the thud of aircraft crash landing and the chillness of the icy water after one such aircraft landed on the water.
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