Atul Gawande (b XXXXXXXXXXis a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, and a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public...

Atul Gawande (b. 1965) is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, and a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. He is also CEO of a nonprofit company, a joint venture among J. P. Morgan, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway, that seeks to lower health care costs for their employees. Gawande has written for The New Yorker, published four New York Times bestselling books, and has won several awards for his writing and research, including a MacArthur Fellowship. The essay below was published in The New Yorker in 2017. Genres: Explaining Concepts, Observation, Arguing for a Position

Before you read, think about how you view doctors. Do you see them as heroes, everyday people, or have you not thought much about their status? Has a doctor ever changed your life or the life of a friend or family member?

As you read, consider why Gawande sets the scene of his visit with Haynes with such specificity in paragraphs 21–24.