Surgeon Atul Gawande’s hands can wield a pen just as well as a scalpel. This author has been writing best-sellers for about as long as he has been saving lives on operating tables. Even before then, Dr. Gawande challenged the American health care system to do better through his journalism and political activism.

He also serves as a professor at Harvard University. In that role, he researches why errors in medicine occur, translating his findings into advice that improves everyday life as well as health care. After all, surgeons and doctors are not the only people who face complex problems.

His 2010 best-seller, “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right,” builds on those ideas and discoveries. While Dr. Gawande is a Brooklynite by birth, his parents immigrated to the United States from India. They were both doctors as well. He now shares a home with his wife, Kathleen, and his three kids in Newton, Massachusetts.