One of the world’s most respected health science writers, Dr Atul Gawande, is coming to New Zealand as a guest of the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival.

Festival director Anne O’Brien says Dr Gawande is a must-see for anyone with an interest in health, medicine and mortality.

“Atul Gawande is a brilliant mind; a world-leader in how to make our experiences in health care safer and healthier, what it’s like to get old and where our ideas about death have gone wrong.”

Dr Gawande will appear in two major public events at the Festival: in conversation with Dr David Galler, an intensive care specialist at Middlemore Hospital, on Saturday 16 May, 5.30pm (Supported by Summerset), and in a panel conversation on the future on Sunday 17 May, 3pm, both in The Aotea Centre’s ASB Theatre.

Tickets for these events, priced from just $15, go on public sale 9am, 19 March from ticketmaster.

Dr Gawande gave last year’s prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC. His bestselling books include The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Better and, most recently, Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End.

While in New Zealand, Dr Gawande will also headline a day-long forum for the health and disability and aged-care sectors in Wellington on Monday 18 May, for further information visit the Health Quality & Safety Commission event page.