On Breakthrough vs. Follow-Through Innovation
Atul Gawande, M.D., M.P.H., is a surgeon, writer, and public health leader. He is a practicing endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is founder and chair of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. He is also co-founder of CIC Health, which operates COVID-19 testing and vaccination nationally, and served as a member of the Biden transition COVID-19 Advisory Board. Recently, he was nominated by President Biden to lead Global Health, including COVID, at USAID.
In addition, Gawande has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1998 and written four New York Times best-selling books: "Complications," "Better," "The Checklist Manifesto," and "Being Mortal." He is the winner of two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Award for writing about science.