Gawande: Job ‘aligns perfectly’ with my mission

Brigham and Women’s surgeon and Harvard’s Ariadne Labs founder Dr. Atul Gawande will bring his public health prowess to a new role at the helm of an Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway nonprofit health care innovation organization.

“We said at the outset that the degree of difficulty is high and success is going to require an expert’s knowledge, a beginner’s mind and a long-term orientation,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “Atul embodies all three, and we’re starting strong as we move forward in this challenging and worthwhile endeavor.”

Gawande, an endocrine surgeon for the Brigham and a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will transition from executive director to chairman of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation.

That will free him up to serve as chief executive of the as-yetunnamed health care innovation company. The appointment was announced yesterday by Bezos, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

“I am thrilled about this opportunity as it aligns perfectly with my personal mission,” Gawande said. “I have devoted my public health career to working with colleagues to build scalable solutions for better health care delivery in the U.S. and across the world.”

Gawande is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine and has written four New York Times bestsellers, including “Being Mortal.”

Gawande has made a commitment to incorporating more endof-life training into medical school curricula.

He is co-founder of the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care, which orchestrated the revamp among four local institutions: Harvard Medical School, Boston University School of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine and University of Massachusetts Medical School.

“Ariadne Labs and Atul have our full support as he continues on his mission to advance care and outcomes for people around the globe,“said Brigham Health President Dr. Betsy Nabel. “We are delighted that this venture will reside in Boston, and look forward to transforming medicine through collaboration and innovation.”