A Simple Check List

Atul Gawande has written a book called The Checklist Manifesto. The core thesis of the book is, no matter how expert you may be, a checklist can improve performance.

Gawande who has incorporated his checklist to his own surgical team, writes about the successes from the simple procedure of planning ahead.

John Murtha died monday from complications from gall-bladder surgery which was preformed on January 28th.

I am not saying that Murtha's death was caused because of negligence of any sort. But I am saying that no matter how routine the surgery, or how many times you have preformed a task, when it comes to life and death, a structured plan to complete the task seems to make a lot of sense.

Your pilot goes through a series of checks before he proceeds to fly a plane, why shouldn't we expect our surgeons to do the same.

Gawande in his own words.