Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande was born on November 5, 1965, and trained as a surgeon, practicing at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He is also a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he has focused on performance improvement in medicine. Gawande rose to prominence as a writer, contributing as a staff writer for The New Yorker and authoring influential books on healthcare. His works, including Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science (2002), Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance (2007), and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (2014), blend surgical experience with analysis of medical errors, performance, and end-of-life care, emphasizing data-driven improvements and human stories. In public service, Gawande led global health efforts at USAID as Assistant Administrator during the Biden administration, overseeing aid programs until his role ended at 11:59 a.m. on the day of Donald Trump's second inauguration in early 2025. Post-tenure, he produced the 2025 documentary Rovina's Choice, highlighting the human impact of U.S. aid cuts in Kenya, including USAID's shutdown and WHO withdrawal.