The Checklist Manifesto: How One Doctor Cut Surgical Deaths by Nearly 50%

Achieving the extraordinary often starts with mastering the fundamentals

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This article is part of my Mind Hackers series, designed to profile people, books and systems to help hack your mind for higher-impact.

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Meet Dr. Atul Gawande.

He's a surgeon, New Yorker writer, public health researcher, and one of Time's 100 most influential thinkers. In 2007, he led a project that slashed surgical deaths by nearly 50% in hospitals worldwide.

His secret weapon? A simple checklist.

This is the power of the Checklist Manifesto.

Let’s dive in:

Dr. Gawande is obsessed with solving complex problems in simple ways. His best-selling book, "The Checklist Manifesto," reveals how checklists provide a cognitive safety net. They help us manage information, reduce errors, and ensure consistency – even under intense pressure.

From Operating Room to Everyday Life

The World Health Organization (WHO) tasked Dr. Gawande with improving the safety of surgical care globally.

His discovery? Complications often stemmed not from a lack of knowledge, but from missed basic steps. The solution? A checklist guaranteeing no crucial step gets overlooked.

Since 1935, pilots have relied on checklists for safety.

As Dr. Gawande puts it, "We got with the lead safety engineer for Boeing to help us design a checklist for surgery. Not for the lowest people on the totem pole, but for everyone in the chain."

Here a segment of his TED Talk on the Importance and Value of the checklist: