Atul Gawande: "Doctors are human. We miss stuff" - Checklists can help Atul Gawande on NPR: Doctors are human, and that their profession is like any other. "We miss stuff. We are inconsistent and unreliable because of the complexity of care," Gawande says. "I got a chance to visit Boeing and see how they make things work, and over and over again they fall back on checklists. The pilot's checklist is a crucial component, not just for how you handle takeoff and landing in normal circumstances, but even how you handle a crisis emergency when you only have a couple of minutes to make a critical decision." References: Atul Gawande's 'Checklist' For Surgery Success. NPR. Related: