What if a surgeon engaged a personal coach to watch him (or her) at work and afterward made suggestions for improvement?

That’s what Atul Gawande has done. In case his name does not reverberate in you, he’s the 45-year-old Boston surgeon who, among many other good things, writes perceptive articles for the New Yorker magazine.

In a recent issue he explained how he came to realize the value of hiring an experienced professional to help him improve his surgical practice.

Gawande knows that few people can sustain their best performance on their own, a recognition that led him to his unconventional move. But how many other highly experienced professionals in medicine would have had the inspiration to hire a coach?

Before going ahead with his plan, Gawande checked in with professionals in other fields, such as teaching and music. There he discovered the importance for top-flight performers, like opera singer Renée Fleming and violinist Itzhak Perlman, of having someone to coach them regularly.

Fleming explained to him the need for her to receive coaching several hours each week so as to keep her voice in proper condition.

The colleague whom Dr. Gawande chose to observe his work in the operating room is one of his former teachers. This now-retired surgeon has helped his erstwhile student discover how to make changes (sometimes subtle) that have improved his performance.

Surgeon and coach get together before beginning the surgery to make sure that the operation is desirable. The importance of this first step may seem obvious, but many patients have undergone surgeries later shown to be ill-advised.

During the procedure itself, the coach noted relatively small ways in which Gawande could improve his approach. For instance, he saw how Gawande draped the patient on the left side rather than the right, a position that made it more difficult for the other medical professionals in the room to carry out their part in the operation.

Similarly, the coach pointed out that Gawande was raising his elbows instead of keeping them close to his body. This had the effect of making it more difficult to achieve precision.

The immediate benefits of this surgical coaching go to Gawande himself and his patients. But the example he has given strikes me as a marvelous model for physicians who wish to improve their skills.

It would certainly improve my confidence in the physicians who treat my age peers around the country if I knew they had adopted coaching. I would especially welcome discovering that they had chosen a geriatrician as coach. Or, in instances of likely terminal disease, a palliative-care specialist.

Too many doctors are unaware of the benefits that old-age specialists (who are unfortunately few in number) can bring to patient care.

In another one of his articles, Atul Gawande reveals that he had been unaware of a geriatrician who worked in the same building. He describes sitting in on a visit by an elderly woman and how differently the doctor dealt with her. This event served as an eye-opener for Gawande and presumably has made a difference in his own practice with older patients.

As a footnote, let me witness to the crucial difference made by my having a coach in my writing. Since the beginning of my late-blooming journalistic career I have made it a practice never to send out columns before they have been reviewed by my in-house editor, my wife Susan.

She offers me a kind of coaching that accounts in large part for whatever success I have achieved as columnist. Would that other prospective writers could find such support at hand.