Here’s a great article by Barron H. Lerner, “Doctors Examine Themselves: Books Explain How Errors Happen, How Patients Can Cope,” about two new books–“Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance” by Atul Gawande, and “How Doctors Think” by Jerome Groopman–that ran in the Washington Post a few weeks ago.

Lerner says these two physician-authors are “seeking to capture our attention not by providing clinical recommendations but by offering insights into how medicine is practiced—insights that could change the way patients deal with doctors. They do so by exploring two of today’s knottiest problems: how to make sense of individual stories of illness in an era that prizes statistical knowledge, and how to empower patients to advocate for themselves in the doctor’s office.”