Pluck: Lessons We Learned for Improving Healthcare and the World

“A GEM OF A BOOK.” ―Donald Berwick, MD

50 years ago a uniform organ donation law had not been enacted, the physician assistant wasn’t a profession, bioethics wasn’t a field, and emergency medical services was a hearse or a painted station wagon with a driver who had inadequate medical training, and 9-1-1 didn’t yet exist. 

From 1967 to 1976, Alfred Sadler and Blair Sadler, a doctor and a lawyer, who are also twin brothers, collaborated on major decisions and laws which had multigenerational and lifesaving impacts in our country including:

✓ The transformation of emergency medicine from a wasteland to a vital component of health care

✓ The development of the universal state law (Uniform Anatomical Gift Act) authorizing organ donation and transplantation

✓ The birth of the brand-new physician assistant profession

✓ The emergence of bioethics as a core principle in healthcare today

In Pluck, the Sadlers share their extraordinary story of helping to create change in four different areas of healthcare in just nine years, while working at the National Institutes of Health, Yale University Medical School, The Hastings Center on Bioethics, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

The book also highlights 15 lessons for catalyzing change that endure and are relevant today. Pluck will inspire, motivate, and educate the next generation who are committed to making positive changes in our world.