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Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science


Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 617.092
EAN: 9780312421700
ISBN: 0312421702
Label: Picador
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageEnglishUnknownEnglishPublished
Manufacturer: Picador
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: April 01, 2003
Publisher: Picador
Studio: Picador

Features:
  • ISBN13: 9780312421700
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

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Editorial Review:In gripping accounts of true cases, surgeon Atul Gawande explores the power and the limits of medicine, offering an unflinching view from the scalpel’s edge. Complications lays bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is—uncertain, perplexing, and profoundly human. Gently dismantling the myth of medical infallibility, Dr. Atul Gawande's Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science is essential reading for anyone involved in medicine--on either end of the stethoscope. Medical professionals make mistakes, learn on the job, and improvise much of their technique and self-confidence. Gawande's tales are humane and passionate reminders that doctors are people, too. His prose is thoughtful and deeply engaging, shifting from sometimes painful stories of suffering patients (including his own child) to intriguing suggestions for improving medicine with the same care he expresses in the surgical theater. Some of his ideas will make health care providers nervous or even angry, but his disarming style, confessional tone, and thoughtful arguments should win over most readers. Complications is a book with heart and an excellent bedside manner, celebrating rather than berating doctors for being merely human. --Rob Lightner

Customer Reviews
Average Rating:  out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - A Must-Read for Every Doctor and anyone who has been, is, or will be a patient
I have read a lot of Dr. Gawande's research and his book "Complications" is a great guide for the layman to understand why things often go wrong in medicine. Dr. Gawande does a great job at de-jargonizing and unpacking the medical field so that anyone can understand why medicine is so complicated. This book doesn't necessarily contain the answers (see Gawande's books, "The Checklist Manifesto" and "Better" for solutions) but does a great job of laying out the problems. Medicine is complicated ... Read More



Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - interesting on several levels
the author is a very good writer. pick up the book and skim for the anecdotal stories that form the central picture for each chapter. just enjoy them as an interesting observation about learning to be a surgeon. then read the last chapter "the case of the red leg", then decide if you want to read the whole book.

it is interesting on at least 3 levels. the first are these stories. the second is the context for the stories, the author's reason for seeing these events as important in his ... Read More



Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - New Yorker magazine contributor/physican writes like a dream!
Dr. Gawande is as likeable a physician as we're apt to encounter. He is able to put the reader by his side, and ON his side, in this sometimes uncomfortably realistic examination of the both the wonderment and failures of modern medicine.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Honest, Insightful, Compelling
Dr. Gwande is brutally honest about his mistakes and the limits of medicine. He will guide you through the thought processes of physicians when they have incomplete data with which to make life altering decisions, and show you how given almost identical circumstances, doctors in different locations will have different diagnoses (i.e. you will be five times more likely to have back surgery recommended to you in Santa Barbara, Ca, then in The Bronx, NY).
Gwande raises ethical questions you won't ... Read More



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - An Imperfect Science, An Incredible Book
Doctors are trained to see things differently: to fix, to heal, to prevent, to listen, to guide, to solve. Amidst the successes of every doctor- in fact, despite and in conjunction with their successes the author would argue- are many uncertainties, inconsistencies, and mistakes that come with being human. The author puts himself in such a vulnerable position, making this book what I think is very brave, very real, very intimate, but also scary enough to make any public relations consultant cringe.
Read More


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