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Title: Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande ISBN: 0805063196 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 04 April, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.79
Rating: 5
Summary: Are All Doctors Perfect?
Comment: Well, not exactly. All doctors aren't perfect. Atul Gawande's book, "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on An Imperfect Science" clearly explains why doctors aren't perfect. The fact is that all humans make mistakes, therefore doctors make mistakes. Since I'm intending on going into a medical field, this book makes me realize how much effort you have to put forth in order to receive a medical education. Atul Gawande gives you an opportunity to take a journey through his medical training and it shows the rigours of a surgical residency. Think how scary it would be performing surgery on a patient for the first time? If I were the patient I would be petrified because I wouldn't want the surgeon to make a mistake, risking my life. His incredible experiences with gastric bypass surgery, the case of the pregnant woman, the dead baby mystery, the case of the red leg, and many others kept me completely captivated with this book. The book is written in such a way that you never want to put it down. It's very intense, scary, and breathtaking, since you don't know what's going to happen with his patients. "Complications" is a must read, especially for those heading into a medical field.
Rating: 5
Summary: Fourth Year med student says: READ THIS BOOK!
Comment: "Complications" is a compendium of essays by surgeon Atul Gawande, with their overriding theme being the fallibility of medical science / the medical system.
This is a great book, first and foremost because it is an engrossing read. This is a work of nonfiction, but each essay has a plot that will keep the reader transfixed.
This book is also a careful and honest examination of many of the important issues with which modern medicine struggles. As a physician-in-training, I can empathize with "Education of a Knife," in which Gawande grapples with the fact that medical procedures are skills which require real-time practice... meaning that in order to have well-trained doctors, not-yet trained doctors have to practice risky procedures on real-life patients (one of whom might be you someday).
My favorite essay is one near the end in which Gawande reviews the case of a woman who had a slight possibility of having the dreaded necrotizing fasciitis (that's "flesh-eating bacteria" to you non-medheads). Had the decisions in her case been based on strict empirical medicine or decision analysis, rather than a vague clinical hunch, her outcome may have been much different. The essay ties together the themes of the book perfectly, underscoring the fact that that the "human factor," the cause of errors in so many cases, still cannot be discarded because our empirical methods and other diagnostic tools are still so primitive.
Although Gawande focuses more on questions than on answers, I think that this may well be a milestone book in medicine. Merely exploring the fallibility of medicine in such an honest, careful way is extremely valuable in that it teaches great humility -- something many doctors could use a little more of. Moreover, discussion of the limits of medicine is what will ultimately improve it. (Note that it is the recognition of the inevitability of human error that has led the field of anesthesia to develop failsafe systems which have so dramatically improved anesthesia safety over the past few decades.)
Awesome work -- thought provoking and actually fun to read. I can't believe that a surgical resident (with KIDS!!!) found the time to produce such great writing -- when does this guy sleep?
Medical schools should consider making some of these essays required reading.
Rating: 4
Summary: A review from a medical student
Comment: Atul Gawande's book, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, is a great read for anyone involved in the world of medicine: patients, nurses, medical students, or even physicians. I feel just about anyone can take something away from this account of medicine's triumphs, fallbacks and mystery.
In the book, Gawande analyzes medicine as seen through his own medical training and professional career. The reader discovers throughout the collection of true stories that medicine is not the highly tuned and infallible body of knowledge and procedure that it seems to be, but a system riddled with uncertainty, error and complications; an imperfect science applied by fallible hands... the hands of human physicians.
But with this unsettling presentation of the drawbacks of medicine, Gawande also gives some indications of the virtues of the practice: its empathy for the people it serves, its genuine drive to help, and its struggle for perfection.
Again, to read this collection of short stories, the reader will surely come away with not so much a sense of skepticism of the practice of medicine, but rather a finer appreciation for its art and humanity.
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Title: Life of Pi by Yann Martel ISBN: 0151008116 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 04 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Second Opinions: Stories of Intuition and Choice in the Changing World of Medicine by Jerome, M.D. Groopman ISBN: 0140298622 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 27 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology by Robert Coles, Randy Testa, Joseph D'Donnell ISBN: 1565847296 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Dressing Station: A Surgeon's Chronicle of War and Medicine by Jonathan Kaplan ISBN: 0802117074 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: 09 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides ISBN: 0374199698 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 04 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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