Why Do Doctors Fail?

The Reith Lectures

BBC

Society & Culture, Science, Government, Technology

4.2 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2014

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande explores the nature of fallibility and suggests that preventing avoidable mistakes is a key challenge for the future of medicine.

Through the story of a life-threatening condition which affected his own baby son, Dr. Gawande suggests that the medical profession needs to understand how best to deploy the enormous arsenal of knowledge which it has acquired. And his challenge for global health is to address the inequalities in access to resources and expertise both within and between countries.

This first of four lectures was recorded before an audience at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dr. Gawande's home town of Boston in Massachusetts. The other lectures are recorded in London, Edinburgh and Delhi.

The series is introduced and chaired by Sue Lawley. The producer is Jim Frank.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.7	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.4	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to
0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all
0:28.1	put together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life,
0:34.9	check out BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Dr. Atul Gawande and this is a download from my 2014 BBC Reith Lectures series.
0:45.3	My theme is the future of medicine, and this lecture asks, why do doctors fail?
0:51.3	Hello and welcome to the first of the 2014 wreath lectures.
0:58.3	We're at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, a dramatic
1:03.2	concrete and glass building overlooking Massachusetts Bay, the nation's official memorial
1:08.6	to its 35th president.
1:17.3	He was a president who inspired a generation with his message of the empowering strength of ideas.
1:23.6	Too often, said Kennedy, we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
1:27.6	An observation that might have been taken as a text for this year's Reith Lecturer,
1:32.0	who admits that he's in what he calls the disturbance business.
1:36.8	He's a Harvard professor of medicine, so Boston now is his hometown too,
1:42.7	but his abilities as a doctor and surgeon are complemented by his skills as a writer,
1:44.8	thinker and political analyst,
1:49.0	and he's become one of the world's leading thinkers on public health.
1:52.5	His lectures are called the future of medicine,
1:58.2	but his subject matter is as much about attitudes, systems and human behaviour as it is about new frontiers in medical research.
	...

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