Atul Gawande is an Indian-American surgeon, professor, author, and public health assistant. This multi-talented physician frequently writes for The New Yorker and Slate magazines on topics related to medicine and public health.
Wiki/Biography
Originally from the village of Uti in Maharashtra, Atul Gawande was born in Brooklyn, New York on Friday, November 5, 1965 (55 years old in 2020). He grew up in Athens, Ohio, and moved to Athens with his family in 1973, completing his education at Athens High School in 1983. In 1987, he received a bachelor’s degree in political science and biology from Stanford University. In 1989, he became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and received a master’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Balliol College, an affiliate of Oxford University. He volunteered as a medical advisor to influential American politicians, including Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, and then returned to medical school for further studies because he did not want his career to be limited to politics. He received a doctorate in medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1995, a master’s degree in public health from Harvard School of Public Health in 1999, and completed general surgery training at Harvard University in 2003 and has been serving the medical community ever since.
Family and Race
Parents and siblings
His parents are Atmaram Gawande (father) and Sushila Gawande (mother), Marathi Indian immigrants to the United States.
Atul Gawande’s father Atmaram Gawande
Atul Gawande’s parents
Both his parents are doctors. His mother is a pediatrician and his father is a urologist. His parents have contributed a lot to charitable activities in the United States and India. His father Atmaram died in 2011 due to a spinal cord tumor. Atul’s sister Meeta is a lawyer.
Wife and children
Atul lives in Newton, Massachusetts with his wife, cartoonist Kathleen Hobson, and their three children: Walker Gawande, Hattie Gawande, and Hunter Gawande.
Atul Gawande and his wife
Profession
Dr. Gawande is a man of many talents. After a brief foray into politics, Gawande began his medical career. However, he cannot be pigeonholed as a doctor; in addition to his medical duties, he is also a professor, journalist, and author.
In politics
As an undergraduate, he volunteered for Gary Hart’s presidential campaign, which helped shape his political career. In 1988, he joined Al Gore’s presidential campaign and served as a health care researcher for Congressman Jim Cooper. In 1992, he became a senior advisor to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under former President Bill Clinton. Prior to taking this position, he also worked on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.
As a doctor
Atul Gawande is an endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gawande is also the founder of Ariadne Labs, a joint health system innovation center, and the chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization that aims to make surgery safer around the world. From 2018 to 2020, Atul Gawande served as CEO of Haven, an affordable health care company founded in partnership by Amazon, Berkshire, and JPMorgan Chase. In November 2020, he was appointed to President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board.
As a writer
Soon after starting his internship at Harvard, his friend Jacob Weisberg (then the editor-in-chief of Slate) invited him to write for the online magazine. Several of his articles were published in The New Yorker. In 1998, he was appointed a staff writer for The New Yorker and has been a member of the magazine ever since. One of his articles comparing health care in two towns caused a great sensation and was mentioned by US President Obama in the US Congress. He has written many articles on topics related to surgical techniques and medical errors. In addition to being a staff writer for two popular magazines, Atul Gawande is an award-winning author of four books: Complications (Picador, 2002), a finalist for the US National Book Award; Better (Penguin Books India, 2007), selected as one of the top ten books of 2007 by Amazon; The Checklist Manifesto: How to Do It Right (Metropolitan Books, 2009). His latest book is Immortality: Medicine and What Finally Matters (Metropolitan Books, 2014).
Awards and Achievements
Atul Gawande has received many awards and achievements, including several notable ones mentioned below.
- In 2004, Mr. Gawande was named one of the 20 most influential South Asians by Newsweek.
- In 2006, Gawande was awarded the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.
- In 2010, Atul Gawande was named one of the world’s most important thinkers by Time magazine.
- His essays have appeared in The Best American Essays 2003, The Best American Science Writing 2002, The Best American Science Writing 2009, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011.
- In 2014, he was awarded the Lewis Thomas Science Writing Award at a ceremony in Caspari Auditorium at the Rockefeller Institute.
- He received the Massachusetts Governor’s Humanities Award in 2016 for advocating for “humanism in health care” through his work.
- In 2018, Atul Gawande was again named by Time magazine as one of the 50 most influential people working to bring better and affordable health care to the United States.
- In 2019, he was ranked fifty-first on Modern Healthcare magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in healthcare.
Facts/Trivia
- In 2007, Dr. Gawande led the World Health Organization’s global effort to reduce surgical mortality. Previously, he wrote an article on expensive health care in the United States and an e-book on improving operating room efficiency.
- In 2009, one of Warren Buffett’s top executives wrote Artur a check for $20,000 for an article he wrote titled “The Cost Puzzle,” which analyzed why rising health care costs in the U.S. weren’t matched by commensurate benefits. Artur returned the check to the sender, only to receive two checks in return. He then donated the money to charity.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education