Cook County ICU
30 Years of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases
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4.6 • 14 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An inside look at one of the nation's most famous public hospitals, Cook County, as seen through the eyes of its longtime Director of Intensive Care, Dr. Cory Franklin. Filled with stories of strange medical cases and unforgettable patients culled from a thirty-year career in medicine, Cook County ICU offers readers a peek into the inner workings of a hospital. Author Dr. Cory Franklin, who headed the hospital’s intensive care unit from the 1970s through the 1990s, shares his most unique and bizarre experiences, including the deadly Chicago heat wave of 1995, treating some of the first AIDS patients in the country before the disease was diagnosed, the nurse with rare Munchausen syndrome, the first surviving ricin victim, and the famous professor whose Parkinson’s disease hid the effects of the wrong medication. Surprising, darkly humorous, heartwarming, and sometimes tragic, these stories provide a big-picture look at how the practice of medicine has changed over the years, making it an enjoyable read for patients, doctors, and anyone with an interest in medicine.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Franklin, former ICU director of Chicago's Cook County Hospital, girds his memoir with a simple yet powerful philosophy: as his medical career has been guided by his heart, he wants his profession as a whole to be grounded in empathy. The stories in this deeply humanist collection feature former patients, some well known and many well loved; remarkable fellow doctors prone to extreme arrogance; medical mysteries solved without the sleuths receiving their due attention; close encounters with celebrities; and Franklin's own fleeting celebrity, including his technical advisor role on the Harrison Ford thriller The Fugitive. But Franklin, whose father also worked at Cook County, mostly writes of his love for a revered "charity hospital," his profession, and the patients who made them both memorable. One such patient was CW, an elderly man whose heart was failing due to a bacterial infection caused by pulling out a tooth with some pliers. The "fancy doctors" scoffed at this "simple man from Texas who had no access to a dentist and no other recourse," writes Franklin; "they had lost their empathy for people like CW long ago." In a medical landscape dominated by "big business, a maze of profit centers, and bureaucracy," Franklin's fond memories contain seeds of pessimism about the future.
Customer Reviews
A Must-Read for Those of us Who Remember
Thoughtful, interesting, well-written book, and frighteningly true. Medicine has strayed far from "covenant" and "virtue" - a sad truth.