Atul Gawande is the author of three previous bestselling books: Complications, a finalist for the National Book Award; Better, selected by Amazon.com as one of the ten best books of 2007; and The Checklist Manifesto. His current book, Being Mortal, was a New York Times Bestseller. He is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for the New Yorker, and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, a MacArthur Fellowship, and two National Magazine Awards. In 2014, he delivered the BBC Reith Lectures. In his work in public health, he is director of Ariadne Labs, a joint centre for health system innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organisation making surgery safer globally. He and his wife have three children and live in Newton, Massachusetts.

The bestselling author of Complications reveals what you need to be a great surgeon - and shows how everyone can improve at what they do

The bestselling author of Complications reveals what you need to be a great surgeon - and shows how everyone can improve at what they do

The struggle to perform well is universal, but nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine. In his new book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable.

His vivid stories take us to battlefield surgical tents in Iraq, to a polio outbreak in India and to malpractice courtrooms around the country. He discusses the ethical dilemmas of doctors' participation in lethal injections, examines the influence of money on modern medicine and recounts the astoundingly contentious history of hand-washing. Finally, he gives a brutally honest insight into life as a practising surgeon.

Unflinching but compassionate, Gawande's investigation into medical professionals and their progression from good to great provides a detailed blueprint for success that can be used by everyone.