NPR

The Trick To Surviving A High-Stakes, High-Pressure Job? Try A Checklist

When we're overstretched and stressed out, we can often make mistakes at work or at home. This week, we explore a tool that surgeons and pilots use to avoid errors in high-stakes situations.
On October 30, 1935, a Boeing plane known as the "flying fortress" crashed during a military demonstration in Ohio — shocking the aviation industry and prompting questions about the future of flight.

Surgeon Atul Gawande still remembers the operation years ago that went catastrophically wrong. He was removing a tumor from the adrenal gland of a patient he refers to as Mr. Hagerman.

Gawande had performed this procedure dozens of times before. But this case was particularly tricky. Mr. Hagerman's

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