Nathan Emmerich

I have been blogging about the 2014 Reith Lectures currently being given by Atul Gawande. This is the final part, Part 4, and is related to Gawande’s fourth talk entitled Part 3, which responds to the third lecture’The Problem of Hubris’ is here. Part 2, which responds to the second lecture ‘The Century of the System,’ is here. Part 1, which responds to the first lecture ‘Why Doctors Fail,' is here. 

In his final Reith lecture, recorded at the India International Centre in Delhi, Gawande addressed The Idea of Wellbeing. Gawande starts the lecture with some family history. His parents were both from India and his family’s fortunes have changed significantly in just three generations. This is used to illustrate the changing nature of public health in ‘advancing economies’ like India. Previous issues concerning malnutrition and diarrhea are increasingly giving way to Western illnesses like diabetes and hypertension. The message is that the major challenges to population health are changing from the acute to the chronic and the responses require a shift in perspective from health to wellbeing or, one might say, being well. Solutions, if indeed there are any, are less about infrastructure, like the provision of clean water, and more about social structures, our individual and collective behaviors, the way we eat, exercise and lead our lives.  

I have been blogging about the 2014 Reith Lectures currently being given by Atul Gawande. This is Part 2, and is related to Gawande’s second talk entitled ‘The Century of the System.’ Part 1, which responds to the first lecture ‘Why Doctors Fail,' is here. 

Gawande devoted much of this lecture to recounting the case history of a three-year-old child who plunged through the ice into a pond, spent thirty minutes under water and ultimately survived with no apparent negative consequences. The tale is, I think, designed to illustrate the value of a systemic approach to medical practice. The young girl’s life was saved as a result of a lot of different interventions happening at the right time and in the right order over the course of at least 2 days. As one of the commentators following the lecture pointed out, this is a highly unusual occurrence. Certainly people who drown in warmer conditions will die. Thus, in this case, the circumstances of the injury are an important part of medicines ability to save the lives of people like this young girl.