This has been the summer of Atul Gawande. I have read his articles, listened to his commentary, and appreciated his tweets about the World Cup and Wimbledon. It should come to little or no surprise that I read Atul Gawande pieces on a regular basis; after all, I am in a Comparative Health Systems course and Atul Gawande has written excellent articles that highlight the failings in our healthcare system and he looks to other industries to provide potential fixes for the system. The most recent Atul Gawande piece that I stumbled upon is “Piecework”– Gawande walks through how the prices for medical procedures are determined. It’s a fascinating read and upon reading it again I stumbled upon the quote that I used to set off this post: “To become a doctor, you spend so much time in the tunnels of preparation—head down, trying not to screw up, trying to make it from one day to the next—that it is a shock to find yourself at the other end, with someone shaking your hand and asking how much money you want to make.”

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