Complications: A Surgeons Notes on an Imperfect-Science
"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 oftentimes hear discussed. New residents have to learn how to operate, but shouldn't it be obvious that you won't get as good care from someone performing surgery for the first time that you would from an expert, even if the expert is at the resident's side? While this is necessary for the future of medicine, it is done at someone's expense.
I love reading Gwande's books. He doesn't hide behind his training, and he lets you know how uncertainty plagues him, and by extension, other doctors."
"Complications" was written by Dr. Atul Gawande, a seventh year surgery resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. In it, Gawande uses individual cases from his repertoire of experience to illustrate some of modern health care's most complex concepts.
Gawande addresses topics like how surgeons are trained, how doctors make complex decisions, and how doctors are held accountable for thier mistakes. Throughout the book, Gawande portrays medical professionals not as omniscient restorative demigods but as fallible human beings: imperfect, error-prone, and often besieged by doubt.
Though this book is not an exposé (Gawand has no particular axe to grind), its essential honesty - which is obvious and profound - provides an almost voyeristic glimpse into medicine's convoluted innards.
Gawande's prose is lucid and uncomplicated. What's more, he manages to integrate his thoughtful philosophical discourse with gripping medical drama: the result is a intricately layered concoction that's both healthy AND delicious.
"Complications" is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. In short, it's exactly the type of book that's needed to inspire discussion about modern medicine: what it is, what it should be, and how to get from here to there. "
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