HPH NOW, Sept 29, 2006, HSPH's Gawande Fourth Faculty Member to Receive MacArthur 'Genius' Award

Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande, Assistant Professor in the HSPH Department of Health Policy and Management, has been awarded a $500,000 MacArthur grant "for genius and creativity" in his work as a surgeon and author "who applies a critical eye to modern surgical practice, articulating its realities, complexities, and challenges." Gawande is also Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Each year, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation offers "no-strings attached" awards to individuals who have "shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction."

Gawande is the fourth HSPH faculty member to receive a "genius" award. The others are Sue Goldie, Jim Yong Kim, and Joel Schwartz. Both Gawande and Goldie graduated HSPH with MPH degrees, as did two other recent MacArthur winners. Alumnus John Rich, MPH '90, received a "genius" award this year; he is now at Drexel University's School of Public Health. Alumna Nawal Nour, MPH '99, of Brigham and Women's Hospital won in 2003.

Gawande works at the nexus of medicine, public health, and media. He is a practicing surgeon who writes about the medical world in both The New Yorker and The New England Journal of Medicine. In 2002, he published a book of essays, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, which became a finalist for a National Book Award. In that year, the book was named Amazon.com's best nonfiction title, and Time magazine called it one of the year's five best.

At HSPH, Dr. Gawande is in the vanguard of health systems research. His research focuses on improving health systems, particularly in reducing medical errors.