Atul Gawande is author of three bestselling books: "Complications", a finalist for the National Book Award; "Better", selected by Amazon.com as one of the ten best books of 2007; and "The Checklist Manifesto". His latest book is "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End". He is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for "The New Yorker", and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, a MacArthur Fellowship, and two National Magazine Awards. In his work in public health, he is Executive Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. He and his wife have three children and live in Newton, Massachusetts.

John Bedford Lloyd's film credits include Philadelphia, The Abyss, and Crossing Delancy and he has made numerous television appearances on shows such as Law & Order, Spin City and The Equalizer.