Outliers: Of Grammy tweets and Gawande

When it comes to the Grammy Awards, even Dr. Atul Gawande likes to get his Twitter on.

While the celebrated surgeon, professor and author usually uses the medium to address the great healthcare issues of the day, as the annual music awards show dragged late into the night, he tweeted: “Ok, I gotta operate in the morning. So do I stay for Frank Ocean?”

But before you can say “Forrest Gump” (the name of the song R&B singer Ocean eventually performed), Gawande received his answer. He then dutifully shared it with his followers.

“Your honor, I'd like to introduce into evidence a tweet Dr Gawande sent the night before he fell asleep on my patient,” tweeted Joel Potischman (whose bio describes him as a “software guy”).

Other reply tweets stated “patient safety is way overrated” and “Shhhhh nobody has to know. Anything goes wrong, just blame it on the resident.”

In the morning, it was revealed that discretion had been on Gawande's checklist, as he tweeted, “Sounds like bed and watching the Levon Helm tribute on youtube were the best choice.”