Understanding Healthcare
Richard Saul Wurman With the publication of his first book in 1962 at the age of 26, RSW began the singular passion of his life: that of making information understandable. In his best-selling book, Information Anxiety, in 1989, (and then again in 2000 with Information Anxiety2) he developed an overview of the motivating principles found in his previous works. Each of his 80 books focuses on some subject or idea that he personally had difficulty understanding. They all stem from his desire to know rather than from already knowing, from his ignorance rather than his intelligence, from his inability rather than his ability, making the complex clear.Along the way, RSW has received both M. Arch. & B. Arch. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1959 he was graduated with the highest honors, awarded the Arthur Spayd Brookes Gold Medal. He established a deep personal & professional relationship with the architect Louis I. Kahn. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA).He has been awarded several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Graham Fellowships & two Chandler Fellowships. In 1991, RSW received the Kevin Lynch Award from MIT for his creation of the ACCESS travel guides & was honored by a retrospective exhibition of his work at the AXIS Design Gallery in Tokyo, Japan on the occasion of their 10th Anniversary. He received the Chrysler Design Award, a Doctorate of Fine Arts by the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Art Center College of Design and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Boston.He chaired the International Design in Aspen in 1972, the first Federal Design Assembly in 1973, followed by the National AIA Convention in 1976, before creating and chairing TED (Technology/Entertainment/Design) conferences from 1984-2002 and currently the TEDMED conferences.He is married to novelist and lyricist Gloria Nagy.  He has 4 children and 5 grandchildren. He lives in Newport, Rhode Island with Max & Abraham (their dogs).