New Yorker October 3, 2011
The New Yorker
Reporting | Essays
Annals Of Medicine
Personal Best
Top athletes and singers have coaches. Should you?
by Atul Gawande
October 3, 2011
I’ve been a surgeon for eight years. For the past couple of them, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau. I’d like to think it’s a good thing—I’ve arrived at my professional peak. But mainly it seems as if I’ve just stopped getting better…
This October New Yorker article is by Dr. Atul Gawande, a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, who after eight years and over 2,000 operations, was looking for ways to improve his performance.
He reviews coaching history and coaching of some major figures in sports (Rafael Nadal), writing (F. Scott Fitzgerald), music (Itzhask Perlman), education (Jim Knight), singing (Renee Fleming), and himself in medicine; he notes how coaching has raised performances to higher levels.