Name: Atul Gawande
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Profession: Surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital; staff writer for New Yorker magazine
Fast facts: Dr. Gawande also serves as an Associate Professor at both Harvard's Medical School and School for Public Health, and is the Research Director for Brigham and Women's Center for Surgery and Public Health. He has degrees from Stanford, Oxford and Harvard, was an adviser to President Bill Clinton, and his book Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance was a New York Times bestseller.
Why he's one to watch: A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship "genius grant," Gawande was already widely respected for the quality of his ideas. Recently, though, he drew international attention--and an instant entry of the annals of leading health reform analysts--when one of his New Yorker pieces explored why the small town of McAllen, Texas, is the most expensive healthcare market in the U.S. His article, which applied these lessons to the national reform debate, has made him one of the most referenced thinkers in health planning. Expect him to play a further role as reform measures emerge and mature.
Websites: www.gawande.com and www.brighamandwomens.org