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Part I - Education of a Knife

• This book is about the experience of becoming a surgeon.

• The author is a surgical resident who uses research, personal experience, and case studies to discuss challenges faced by surgeons.

• Gawande discusses that surgeons learn by practice, recounting his first experience inserting an intravenous line into the main blood vessel of the patient's heart.

• Although he had seen the procedure done before, he forgets three key steps and attempts to insert the line twice before the chief resident intervenes.

• Gawande fails to successfully complete this procedure several times until he finally gets it right, which he attributes to practice.
• Gawande believes that a successful surgeon is one who has the determination to keep practicing even though it is difficult.

• A Harvard Business School research study showed that the most successful surgical teams were ones that hand selected their teams, practiced first...

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