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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鈥檚 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.

50 minutes

Last on

Mon 29 Dec 2014 16:32GMT

More about Dr Atul Gawande

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Broadcasts

  • Tue 25 Nov 2014 13:05GMT
  • Sat 29 Nov 2014 19:05GMT
  • Mon 29 Dec 2014 16:32GMT

The Reith Lectures on Radio 4

Archive recordings from the 成人论坛's flagship annual lecture series going back to 1948