we usually have only vague indicators to rely upon. - Atul Gawande

But as your horizons contract — when you see the future ahead of you as finite and uncertain — your focus shifts to the here and now, to everyday pleasures and the people closest to you.

Operations like that lap chole have taught me how easily error can occur, but they’ve also showed me something else: effort does matter; diligence and attention to the minutest details can save you.”
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sometime over the last several decades — and it is only over the last several decades — science has filled in enough knowledge to make ineptitude as much our struggle as ignorance.