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Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 617.092
EAN: 9780805063196
Edition: 1st
ISBN: 0805063196
Label: Metropolitan Books
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageEnglishUnknownEnglishPublished
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 269
Publication Date: April 04, 2002
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Studio: Metropolitan Books
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Editorial Review:Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with ones own eyes. This book is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually iscomplicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpels edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high, yet decisions must be made. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad. He also shows us what happens when medicine comes up against the inexplicable: an architect with incapacitating back pain for which there is no physical cause; a young woman with nausea that wont go away; a television newscaster whose blushing is so severe that she cannot do her job. Gawande offers a richly detailed portrait of the people and the science, even as he tackles the paradoxes and imperfections inherent in caring for human lives.At once tough-minded and humane, Complications is a new kind of medical writing, nuanced and lucid, unafraid to confront the conflicts and uncertainties that lie at the heart of modern medicine, yet always alive to the possibilities of wisdom in this extraordinary endeavor.
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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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