In 2008, the World Health Organization rolled out a 19-item checklist for surgeons in eight hospitals across the world. Stuff like.. confirm the patient's name. Confirm the body part you're operating on. Make sure everyone in the room knows their role.

Basic stuff. Stuff a trained surgeon obviously knows.

The checklist took maybe two minutes to run through.

And after they introduced it, deaths from surgery dropped by 47%. Complications dropped by a third. Hospitals in Toronto, Tanzania, Manila, London. Wherever they tried it.. the numbers held up.

Just think about it for a second.

Surgeons don't fail because they don't know what they're doing. They've trained for ten years. Done thousands of operations. They know.

They fail because somewhere in the middle of a complicated procedure, a tired experienced surgeon convinces himself he already checked the thing he forgot to check. That's it. That's the gap that kills people.

And a piece of paper closes it.