A Bad System Beats a Good Person Every Time

Some of the most meaningful things I built this year weren’t papers or presentations or new protocols.

They were systems.

Templates. Manuals. Scripts. Shared folders with links that worked.

A “transfusion reaction holy book” with impression templates and scaffolded recommendations.

An updated note template to make documentation faster and more consistent.

New order sets that removed friction and reduced errors.

Substantial improvements to the Excel workbook used for clinical calculations, cleaning up structure and adding missing tools.

Manuals for services that had nothing—designed for fellows, by someone who had lived the gaps.

And yes, the platelet script—short, sharp, and deeply satisfying to deploy.

These weren’t glamorous projects. Most didn’t come with authorship or awards. But they changed things. Quietly. Steadily. Measurably.

Because when you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and still trying to learn, there’s nothing more powerful than a system that works. One that says:

“Here. I’ve thought about this. I’ve built something to make it easier.”

W. Edwards Deming once said, “A bad system beats a good person every time.”

He was right. I’ve seen it. The smartest, kindest, hardest-working people can be flattened by broken processes. But the reverse is also true: a good system can lift people up. It can make it easier to be good at your job—even when you’re tired, new, or unsure.

Medicine loves the heroic gesture—the brilliant diagnosis, the dramatic rescue, the high-impact publication. But the real work, the work that keeps the ship afloat, lives in process improvement. In clarity. In tools that actually help.

I wasn’t always sure I was doing enough this year. But then I saw someone use the materials I built and say, “Oh thank god.”

That’s enough for me.