Complications
A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
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4.4 • 21 Ratings
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- £4.49
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- £4.49
Publisher Description
The international bestseller from the author of Being Mortal
In these gripping accounts of true cases, bestselling author Atul Gawande performs exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealised form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing and profoundly human.
This is a stunningly well-written account of the life of a surgeon: what it is like to cut into people's bodies and the terrifying - literally life and death - decisions that have to be made: operations that go wrong; of doctors who go to the bad; why autopsies are necessary; what it feels like to insert your knife into someone.
'Written as tautly as a thriller' Observer
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Medicine reveals itself as a fascinatingly complex and "fundamentally human endeavor" in this distinguished debut essay collection by a surgical resident and staff writer for the New Yorker. Gawande, a former Rhodes scholar and Harvard Medical School graduate, illuminates "the moments in which medicine actually happens," and describes his profession as an "enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information, fallible individuals, and at the same time lives on the line." Gawande's background in philosophy and ethics is evident throughout these pieces, which range from edgy accounts of medical traumas to sobering analyses of doctors' anxieties and burnout. With humor, sensitivity and critical intelligence, he explores the pros and cons of new technologies, including a controversial factory model for routine surgeries that delivers superior success rates while dramatically cutting costs. He also describes treatment of such challenging conditions as morbid obesity, chronic pain and necrotizing fasciitis the often-fatal condition caused by dreaded "flesh-eating bacteria" and probes the agonizing process by which physicians balance knowledge and intuition to make seemingly impossible decisions. What draws practitioners to this challenging profession, he concludes, is the promise of "the alterable moment the fragile but crystalline opportunity for one's know-how, ability or just gut instinct to change the course of another's life for the better." These exquisitely crafted essays, in which medical subjects segue into explorations of much larger themes, place Gawande among the best in the field. National author tour.
Customer Reviews
Honest, readable and fascinating
Complications is a collection of essays varying on the theme of the degree of uncertainty inherent and judgment required in medicine. It's highly readable, and intensely human. Atul Gawande's frankness about his own fallibility as a surgeon makes it compelling.
Highly recommended.
Complications by atul gawande
This is logically laid out and well written, even for the lay reader.
This is a must read for all surgeons and senior clinicians. Particularly the chapter on how good doctors turn bad!