Gawande Named MacArthur Fellow
Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, of the BWH Division of General and Gastrointestinal Surgery, last month was named a MacArthur Fellow for his work on modern surgical practices and medical ethics. Gawande joins 24 others from across the country in receiving this prestigious honor known as the “genius grant,” which awards recipients $500,000 to spend any way they choose.
“Atul’s passion and commitment to excellence is the hallmark of his dedication to medicine,” Michael Zinner, MD, BWH’s chair of Surgery and surgeon-in-chief, said.
Gawande said he was shocked and pleased to learn of this honor. “I’m elated to have my work so wonderfully validated,” he said.
Gawande’s innovations in surgery include developing bar codes to prevent surgeons from accidentally leaving sponges and instruments in patients and a simple scale to indicate the likelihood of complications.
“Gawande is giving leadership to the identification of numerous other enhancements to surgical protocol that will both improve practice and save lives,” according to the MacArthur Fellows Program.
Gawande also is changing the future of surgery through his writing. A seasoned author, Gawande published “Complications” in 2002, a New York Times bestselling book that provides insight into the problems faced by surgeons-in-training. He is a staff writer for the New Yorker and pens the “Notes of a Surgeon” column for the New England Journal of Medicine.
Gawande has been a surgeon in the Division of General and Gastrointestinal Surgery at BWH and an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at Harvard Medical School since 2003. He also has served for the past two years as assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard School of Public Health and assistant director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health at BWH.
Gawande received a BAS from Stanford University, an MA from the University of Oxford, an MD from Harvard Medical School and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.