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Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science Review

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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 life/training. not only is he an observant storyteller, involving you emotional in his tale but he let’s you see inside his head as to why this story and how does it fit. but as is usual what really interests me is this high level thinking–what makes a good surgeon, what makes a good medical system that finds out what is wrong with people and fixes it right. essentially the context of his experience of learning to be a surgeon in a hospital, the context of the second level.

take the last chapter. the story is about a lady with a really bad infected leg.a story well told, persuasive, interesting, emotional involving. it could end there, reader’s digest style. but it doesn’t because he writes for the new york times, which calls for a bit more thinking, thankfully. how did the system work, how did it almost not work right, you know when the medical system doesn’t work right, people die. but it is this 3rd level, beyond constructive criticism of the system that fascinates me, how exactly did he know these particular bacteria infected the leg, and why did he push to demonstrate this knowledge?

the way he tells the story, he attributes it to that uneasy feeling brought on by a similar case in the recent past. but i think it’s more than that. it is the idea that contrary to our dominate ideas of objective knowledge, all knowledge is subjective and is attached to a person, as polanyi stated personal knowledge. “we know more than we can say”. it is training this intuitive, this up close personal who you are type vs what you can speak and consciously think about type that forms this top level. how you become a surgeon above and beyond thinking like a surgeon. neat, philosophy intersects with medicine.

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science Feature

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

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science Overview

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.

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science Specifications

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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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Feb 08, 2010 10:08:04