Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science |
| |
|
|
|
Author:
Atul Gawande
By Profile Books
Average Customer Rating: 
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.09
|
|
|
|
|
- New
- Mint Condition
- Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
- Guaranteed packaging
- No quibbles returns
|
Product Description
Giving an account of the life of a surgeon, this book looks at what it is like to cut into people's bodies and the - literally life and death - decisions that have to be made. It includes chronicles of operations that go wrong; of doctors who go to the bad; why autopsies are necessary; and what it feels like to insert your knife into someone.
Amazon.co.uk Review
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 theatre. 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
|
An excellent book!, 2009-11-17
The author is, above all, honest. He writes the truth and doesn't try to hide unpleasant or scary things. Despite this, the book is highly entertaining, excellent reading, you will literally swallow it in one evening!
All doctors and most patients should read this, 2010-01-08
This should be mandatory reading for all doctors, medical students and much of the health service-using public too. Atul Gawande has great clarity of thought and this very readable book crystallises many of the problems of providing and receiving health care. It is also a very enjoyable read---his humility and his clear fascination for his subject make this so enjoyable as well as informative.
excellent, 2010-03-06
My background is that in January 2009 I had major neurological surgery. I was given a multi-bacterial, hospital borne post-operative infection which was badly diagnosed. Part of my face was eaten away by infection and my eye was also disfigured by errors during the surgery. The upshot is that I have been left grossly facially disfigured for life. The infection also utterly destroyed my hair. I was a very attractive woman before this was done to me. I have a number of complaints about the NHS doctors and nurses whom I have encountered, and it is not appropriate to air them here, especially a legal action is pending.
I found Gwande's book not only gave a useful insight into the mindset of responsible medical professionals, but also was very instructive as to medical procedures, etc.
 another hollywood medicine, 2010-06-28
Dr Gawande does a good essay about medicine and surgery, but in general he uses the usual technique of telling about strange, rare or emergency cases when the surgeon, a physician who is a person of action, has to do difficult punctures of central vascular ways or tracheotomies.
That's a partial, spectacular, attractive but very restricted landscape of medicine for people in general. Dr. Gawande also mentions some strange non surgical syndromes really happening as these epidemic of back pain in Australia. These cases are a mystery and they are growing in modern societies.
But as usual, the book lacks or eludes an enormous and very expensive burden: the social facet of Public Health Services today and the enormous incidence of sociopaties in today's practice.
That's a hard task to do, of course much more boring, dull and routinely than dangerous brilliant surgery, but as real as these and also, much more abundant. Western societies of today are in general decadent, ill societies, and they resource to the physician, no to politics, when they should go to these with his complains. Dealing with such patients is usually by nothing pleasant nor easy for the physician.
Perhaps the USA are different, but I have my doubts and in that sense, books as this are incomplete and deceitful when not including these ugly face of social "medicine".
Brilliant, 2010-04-15
This is without doubt a very scintillating read. Gawande has you hooked right from the start and his anecdotes are always very interesting. I would strongly recommend this for anyone, not just those involved in healthcare as a unique perspective into the world of healthcare; indeed my (non medic) family found it to be an enthralling read!
I initially read this text when applying for medical school and it confirmed my intentions and gave me something to talk about at interview and I felt as though I had a somewhat enlightened and unique perspective. You will not regret purchasing this book!
|
|
Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9781846681325
ISBN: 1846681324
Label: Profile Books
Manufacturer: Profile Books
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2008-03-27
Publisher: Profile Books
Studio: Profile Books |
|
|