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Title: Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande ISBN: 0-312-42170-2 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.81 (58 reviews)
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: 5
Summary: Surgery: Noble but Imperfect Medicine
Comment: Complications: by Atul Gawande
A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
Surgery is often perceived as the most respected of all the medical professions, but one surgeon's bravely written insiders essays paints a bittersweet picture of the medical practice of surgeons. In fact, "practice" is the operational word in describing what makes for a "good" surgeon - and Dr. Atul Gawande describes how the surgeon needs plenty of opportunities to wield the scalpel before he or she feels as competent as they look when they use one. "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science" by Atul Gawande is a personal collection of spell binding first person medical stories. Gawands presents the reader with a physician who's as creative with prose as he appears to be with surgical sutures. Gawande is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker Magazine. Usually retrospective physicians in a reading group I participate in were unusually animated about "Complications" and validated some of Gawande's stories with similar versions of their own.
"Complications" is not a medical "who-done-it"; nor is it a non-fiction version of the popular television show "ER". It's about one surgeon's practice, but the stories are, to a certain extent, similar to the shared experiences of all physicians, regardless of their specialty. A surgeon must have a good medical education, lots of practice doing procedures that develop proficient skills and a fair amount of good luck.
Sometimes surgery helps patients to physically recover but the psychological side effects cannot be measured as easily as physiologic symptoms. One essay brings that point home titled, "Crimson Tide", about a girl who seeks a surgical cure for uncontrollable blushing. In this case, the patient felt her spontaneous blushing was holding her back as a television news anchor because it affected her job performance. After her successful surgery obtained in Scandinavia, she discovered she was self conscious about having it done in the first place, even though it cured her blushing! Essays in "Complications" begin with real people, identities protected, who somehow, either positively or not, are affected by medical treatment. One essay is about the conditions of physicians themselves, titled "When Good Doctors Go Bad". Gawande is certainly a terrific storyteller. Too bad the surgical profession has taken hundreds of years to finally support one of their own to tell their stories "in their own words". "Complications" also received an impressive distinction as a National Book Award Finalist.
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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: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach ISBN: 0393050939 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Walk on Water: Inside an Elite Pediatric Surgical Unit by Michael Ruhlman ISBN: 0670032018 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Intern Blues : The Timeless Classic About the Making of a Doctor by Robert Marion ISBN: 0060937092 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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