Book Description
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. In his new book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable. Gawandes gripping stories of diligence, ingenuity, and what it means to do right by people take us to battlefield surgical tents in Iraq, to labor and delivery rooms in Boston, to a polio outbreak in India, and to malpractice courtrooms around the country. He discusses the ethical dilemmas of doctors participation in lethal injections, examines the influence of money on modern medicine, and recounts the astoundingly contentious history of hand washing. And as in all his writing, Gawande gives us an inside look at his own life as a practicing surgeon, offering a searingly honest firsthand account of work in a field where mistakes are both unavoidable and unthinkable. At once unflinching and compassionate, Better is an exhilarating journey narrated by arguably the best nonfiction doctor-writer around (Salon). Gawandes investigation into medical professionals and how they progress from merely good to great provides rare insight into the elements of success, illuminating every area of human endeavor.
Customer Reviews:
Dr. Gawande.......2007-09-26
I really enjoy Dr. Gawande's pieces in the New York Times and think his book is even better. He writes about specific cases that have relevance to me and my practice, and does so in an entertaining and captivating fashion. It makes me want to go back and read his New Yorker pieces.
Surprisingly Thought-Provoking Book.......2007-09-15
Initially, I was skeptical about reading this book; I started reading it feeling sure that it would be kind of hokey. Some parts of it WERE a bit hokey (like the afterword where the author gives his five ideas for being a positive deviant). But I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were many points in the book that made me stop and think a little bit more about the training that I am undergoing and what the ultimate goal of it all is. In particular, the chapters about physician involvement in executions, and the bell curve chapter concerning the performances of CF centers, really gave me pause. The book is a fairly short and quick read, but I recommend not rushing through it. I stopped after each chapter and just jotted down a note about what I was thinking at that point. It was interesting to go back later and discuss these issues with my classmates and some physicians, as well as to consider them further myself.
Great book for aspring doctors.......2007-08-27
After reading Atul Gawande's other book I was compelled to purchase his latest one and was not disappointed. Pretty much all of my reading has been medically oriented lately, but this book was fun and accessible for anyone. I recommend this book for anyone thinking of becoming a physician.
A Surgeon's Notes on Performance.......2007-08-24
The surgeon I got the book for as a gift reported that he found it very relevant.
and well written.
An excellent book about how to get better at anything.......2007-08-18
This book will be a great read for you if you're interested in the practice of medicine and how it could be done better. You'll love it if you simply enjoy lucid writing about the practice of medicine.
But this book also offers you great lessons if you want to understand how science and performance management come together as they should in business or any other field of endeavor. That's because the author sets out to answer a question that is as important for people in business as it is for people in medicine.
What does it take to be good at something when it is so easy not to be?
Gawande ways that most people, especially physicians, think that success in medicine comes from canny diagnosis, technical prowess and the ability to empathize. They think that progress in medicine comes from scientific breakthroughs and sophisticated equipment and procedures.
The reality, though, is quote different. Improved performance, according to Gawande, comes from
Diligence
Doing Right
Ingenuity
Again and again Gawande demonstrates how concentrating on patients and on performance leads to improvement for both individuals and for medical practice in general. He does this with a mix of historical examples, patient stories, statistics and stories from his own life and practice.
He divides the book into three sections corresponding to his three necessities for improvement.
In the section on Diligence the chapters are on washing hands, dealing with polio in India, and dealing with casualties from the Iraq war. The chapter on military medicine and the concentration on process improvement is worth the price of the book if you're in business. One of the most powerful lessons of this book is that process improvements can lead to dramatic improvements in performance.
The section on Doing Right deals with ethical issues that physicians face. The chapters are on medical malpractice, whether and how physicians should be involved in executions, when a physician should fight to keep a patient alive, and the problems and dilemmas of how the business side of medicine affects how medicine is practiced.
The central messages of this section are that "Choices must be made. No choice will always be right. There are ways to make our choices better." How to learn about making better choices is the subject of the third and final section of the book.
In Ingenuity or "thinking anew," Gawande covers measuring the comparative effectiveness of physicians and medical centers, relative and absolute measures of performance, the practice of obstetrics as a model of change, and how physicians in less developed countries get by without the technology and facilities that are characteristic of US medicine.
This section is about how to do better. You can sum it up this way: there is a bell curve in almost all human activities with huge variations in performance between the best and those in the middle of the pack. Measuring results is the way to get results that matter.
This book is about the practice of medicine but it's also about getting better at whatever it is that you do. Gawande's message is that "better is possible." It requires diligence and moral clarity, the willingness to try and measure outcomes, and the discipline to change what you do based on the results you get.
Amazon.com
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
Book Description
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.
Customer Reviews:
Not that extreme.......2007-10-05
Going into this book I envisioned many extreme surgical cases to overwhelm me. That wasn't the case though. This book only gives cases from one persons viewpoint as examples of the learning process for those in the medical profession. This book is really trying to gain a bigger audience than it deserves by playing up the complications of surgery when it is really more of a learning aid. I enjoyed it but was somewhat let down.
Vignettes On The Scalpel's Edge.......2007-09-12
Being in the medical field, I found myself pretty engrossed in Atul Gawande's COMPLICATIONS. But even if you're not in medicine, there's no reason you shouldn't pick up the book. Focusing on both sides of the scalpel (those that get cut as well as those that do the cutting), the vignettes sketched out here are hit upon with compassion, thoughtfulness, and razor-sharp telling ("We have taken [medicine] to be both more perfect than it is and less extraordinary than it can be.")
Gawande holds back nothing in his narrative. One chapter will discuss the evolution of a surgeon and how perilous and dangerous it can be ("Everyone wants a surgeon with experience, but how does a new surgeon become the veteran?"), while the next will look at how effective specialized medicine is (a hospital that does ONLY hernia operations and how incredibly successful those surgeons are).
The most frightening portion of the book -- for me -- was the discussion on dangerous doctors (chapter 5: When Good Doctors Go Bad). When MD's get older and can't function as well, or get burned out, or simply can't keep up with new medical technology, there's no system in place to remove them. The AMA, local affiliate groups, none have the sole power to remove a doctor until it is often too late for the patients (Gawande's examples are horrifying, showing us an orthopedist who had more law suits pending against him than patients in his practice, and still he practiced and operated).
The big flaw with this "novel" is that it isn't novel at all. It is a compilation of short stories without a core. Whipping back and forth between medical superstitions in one chapter to the study of subjective pain the next, there's no rhyme or reason to the placement of chapters within the book. This isn't all bad, though, just something the reader should be aware of before digging in.
Regardless, it is an eye-opener to those in the medical profession and those who are patients within it. Gawande is as sharp with his pen as he is with his scalpel. And he spares no one; from the physicians within his own cadre, to the misconceptions patients hold for their care givers.
Complications should be required reading by all physicians, past, present and, especially, future simply because it is brutally honest and keeps its perspective tightly woven toward patient care.
A wonderful book: thoughtful, insightful, and clearly written.......2007-08-23
I cannot recommend this book too highly for anyone interested in medical practice as a clinician, future clinician, present or future patient, or friend or loved one of a patient. In other words, just about everyone. I am using it in my Medical Ethics (philosophy) course because each of the essays raises important bioethical questions. We are also using it for an educational session in the Pediatric Ethics Committee of a major teaching hospital.
My only regret in assigning Gawande's essays in a university course is that all of the other readings, even the best written, may seem a bit dull by comparison. Gawande is a master story-teller, and most of the essays tell compelling stories. More than anything I've read, they give the reader a feel for the drama of medical decision-making. But they do more than that because Gawande uses each narrative as a springboard for raising larger issues and, in many cases, offering insightful and compassionate suggestions for how to address them.
Gawande's essays are, in spite of the ultra-serious subject, a joy to read. They are models of clarity and among the best-written essays I've ever read (and I've been teaching over 30 years).
Gawande presents the medical profession realistically without sugar-coating. Medical errors and plain negligence are not ignored. But in the end one gains a realistic appreciation of the medical profession, of the frequent need to make life-and-death choices without the comfort of definite evidence, and of the extent and limits of patient autonomy.
take it with a grain of salt.......2007-08-19
This book has gotten rave reviews but I was not so impressed. Dr. Gawande describes his training in a large academic medical center where every test, scan and specialist is available at the snap of ones fingers. Mobs of specialists descend on complicated patients like swarms of locust. Dr. Gawande describes one anxiety filled period time when he has to wait a full 20 minutes for one such specialist to appear. This is not how most medicine is practiced. I think Dr. Gawande should do a shift in a rural emergency room to learn what real uncertainty is all about.
Should be required reading!.......2007-08-19
I really applaud Dr. Gawande for taking so much mystery out of health care. I've always felt that it was important to be a partner in my own health treatment, and I guess I would've considered myself an "educated consumer." But this book made me realize just how much I DIDN'T know about doctors, surgery, and so many other aspects of medical care. The way it's written, this book is an easy read... easy to pick up and read in bite-sized pieces. But, on a much deeper level, it gives you a much greater understanding of how doctors are trained, how they think, and how they're just as human (and fallible) as everyone else. On one hand, this book is a scary "wake-up call" for patients. On the other, it's an incredibly empowering and educational tool. Anyone who receives medical care should be required to read this book!
Book Description
A brilliant young transplant surgeon brings moral intensity and narrative drama to the most powerful and vexing questions of medicine and the human condition.
When Pauline Chen began medical school twenty years ago, she dreamed of saving lives. What she did not count on was how much death would be a part of her work. Almost immediately, Chen found herself wrestling with medicine’s most profound paradox, that a profession premised on caring for the ill also systematically depersonalizes dying. Final Exam follows Chen over the course of her education, training, and practice as she grapples at strikingly close range with the problem of mortality, and struggles to reconcile the lessons of her training with her innate knowledge of shared humanity, and to separate her ideas about healing from her fierce desire to cure.
From her first dissection of a cadaver in gross anatomy to the moment she first puts a scalpel to a living person; from the first time she witnesses someone flatlining in the emergency room to the first time she pronounces a patient dead, Chen is struck by her own mortal fears: there was a dying friend she could not call; a young patient’s tortured death she could not forget; even the sense of shared kinship with a corpse she could not cast aside when asked to saw its pelvis in two. Gradually, as she confronts the ways in which her fears have incapacitated her, she begins to reject what she has been taught about suppressing her feelings for her patients, and she begins to carve out a new role for herself as a physician and as human being. Chen’s transfixing and beautiful rumination on how doctors negotiate the ineluctable fact of death becomes, in the end, a brilliant questioning of how we should live.
Moving and provocative, motored equally by clinical expertise and extraordinary personal grace, this is a piercing and compassionate journey into the heart of a world that is hidden and yet touches all of our lives. A superb addition to the best medical literature of our time.
Customer Reviews:
Surgeons are human too... crystal clear honesty from an accomplished professional.......2007-08-27
This book had much value for me personally. I'm not a doctor or a pre-med student. I picked this book up by chance on the "new book" shelf at our local library. We had a son who was born with a severe, rare chromosomal syndrome. He stood no chance of survival yet sincere, overly zealous surgical professionals endeavored to schedule surgery without discussion or consultation from we parents even as he struggled to stay alive on life support. My son had absolutely no prospects of surviving infancy, much less a life free of tortuous pain. What hurt the most was how we, the parents, had to stand up for our rights to allow our son the dignified and welcome relief that could come only through death. It was clear to us, as it is clear to Dr. Chen in her book, that the highly trained and zealous surgical professionals lacked the sensitivity to fully appreciate or consider the moral aspects and shamelessness of dying peacefully with dignity.
This book has moving first person accounts of what ridiculous decisions are being made when death is unavoidable and stands there to relieve those whose continued suffering is senseless. I was particularly moved by the account of the "full court press" given to a dying cancer patient who triggered the "code blue". We owe much to Dr. Chen for making public this and other events that fully expose the deficiencies in the medical community's approach to care of the terminally ill.
Dr. Chen's emotional honesty in this very personalized narrative is a great tribute to those of her profession who have struggled at being competent professionals while retaining the qualities of moral and compassionate human beings.
A remarkable book by a remarkable woman.......2007-08-25
This is a deeply engaging and moving book. To become an accomplished transplant surgeon demands many gifts, including high intelligence, perseverance, physical skill, focus. What is not required, and what Dr. Chen displays in full measure herein, is the ability to examine one's actions and feelings with the kind of introspection and depth demonstrated in "Final Exam". One also does not necessarily expect a fine surgeon to be a fine writer. Dr. Chen is a very fine writer.
Anyone interested in the psychological and philosophical issues surounding modern medicine should read this book.
Fascinating--Exquisitely Written--Full of Heartfelt Honesty.......2007-07-07
"Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality" by Pauline W. Chen is outstanding on many levels. Its purpose is to reveal what is wrong with the medical profession's attitude toward the treatment of terminally ill and dying patients. But don't expect an academic discussion; Chen makes this issue very personal. The book is a recounting of the many experiences in her own medical career--from medical student to transplant surgeon--that shaped and later changed her attitude toward care of patients at the end of life.
I had no particular reason to read this book--I am not a doctor, the parent of a doctor, or involved in any way with the medical profession. I just saw this book on the New Books shelf in my local library and checked it out. What is amazing is that I could not put this book down--I know that sounds so trite, but it's true. What grabbed me first was the wholly unexpected openness and honesty of the author. What grabbed me next was the beautiful clear prose. Here was a brilliant woman doctor telling me all about the many experiences in her medical career that shaped her current convictions about medical care at the end of life. But she was not just telling me about these medical experiences, she was turning herself inside out to reveal how she actually FELT about each experience. How many doctors have you ever heard talk to you about their feelings? This author brought me close to her heart--I felt like a sister or a dear friend.
I came away from this book with a far greater respect for physicians; especially all they have to deal with, physically and mentally, throughout their long years of training and practice. I also come away with a far greater appreciation for the human frailty of physicians, particularly when dealing with-end of-life issues. This is a profession that has to deal with far more than a normally allotted human share of agony, grief, and soul-searching.
Now what?.......2007-06-04
As an undergraduate humanities teacher, I have often observed how unimaginative pre-med students can be (as well as very bright, of course). So this sensitively written, introspective memoir is a surprise and delight. I am, as an older person now, also happy to see medical activism admitting its ultimate helplessness in the face of human mortality. After all doctors eventually lose every one of their patients, don't they? On the other hand, what has Pauline to offer us in the face of the ultimate modern terror except a tear and some time? I understand that is the best we often have these days, but it's not much. As a medievalist, I live much of my life in a world where this fragile life and this frail body are passing things to be happily cast off of as a precondition to an eternal life free of the suffering that Chen sets before us so poignantly.
I am not suggesting that the beliefs of the medieval world were correct but that our ancestors had a rich tradition of ideas, feelings and rituals with which to face this ultimate challenge to life as we know it. If the price of the modern world's enormous skill in prolonging life was dependent on overthrowing the beliefs of traditional Western culture, what have we gained but a few more years and the terror of slipping alone into eternal darkness? I hope Pauline weeps for that as well someday; if she can write another book afterwards, it may well be a masterpiece.
How a surgeon deals with death.......2007-05-30
As shocking and gory as the medical world is portrayed on television, it seldom comes close to reality, a lesson that Pauline W. Chen regurgitates in FINAL EXAM as she describes her academic (and continuing) education in the most difficult of all lessons: dealing with death.
I'm no psychologist, but sometimes I wonder if doctors go into the profession because of a God complex, where they wield such awesome power; patients defer to their wisdom and put their fates completely into their hands. Then comes the inevitable day when the physician loses her first patient, whether due to something she did or didn't do, or because nature has taken its course. It must be quite a blow to the ego.
Then the transformation occurs.
The doctor can go one of two ways. She can either steel herself against death or learn from it and become a more compassionate caregiver.
Chen, who attended Harvard University and the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, paints a compelling picture, but one that is not for the squeamish. She discusses her first interaction with a corpse as she and her fellow med students learned anatomy through dissection. The respect and "relationship" that developed is touching, as Chen realizes this former life force had a history, a family, hopes and dreams, just as she does.
Over the course of her studies and through her residency, Chen learns that her work is not parceled out as neatly as television shows such as "ER" and "Grey's Anatomy." The victims do not lie in bed neatly as doctors and nurses struggle to keep them alive. They slide around, bleed, moan and cry out.
There is no part of Chen's story that isn't saturated with sadness, even as she is learning. Every new character is destined to die. How will Chen respond? Will she reach out to the dying man and his family? Will she try to hide until the end has come and avoid it all?
For all the emotion, Chen does not come down on one side or the other on the technology that is available to keep the patient going. Indeed, most of the people she discusses have decided to go out on their own terms.
What must one feel upon being given that death sentence? How does a doctor ever get used to passing down that sentence, when nothing else can be done? "[T]he words emerge," Chen writes in a chapter titled "Sorry to inform you" "so softly that I see everyone leaning in as I speak. 'I wonder,' I hear myself saying to these people, 'if you have thought of what you want at the end of life?'"
Taking a very cynical stance, as lofty as the author's intentions are, FINAL EXAM reminds me of a line from "I'm a Loser": "Is it for her or myself that I cry?"
--- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan
Average customer rating:
- The perfect gift for people you love when they're diagnosed with Cander.
- Not your fault!
- A powerful message but not scientifically prooven
- hope, but not false hope
- a read that cheers you up
|
Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients
Bernie S. Siegel
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
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Book Description
Unconditional love is the most powerful stimulant of the immune system. The truth is: love heals. Miracles happen to exceptional patients every day--patients who have the courage to love, those who have the courage to work with their doctors to participate in and influence their own recovery.
"Run, don't walk, to the nearest bookstore and get this amazing book that explains how you can 'think' yourself sick or well...Every family should have a copy. It can be a lifesaver."
--Ann Landers
Customer Reviews:
The perfect gift for people you love when they're diagnosed with Cander........2007-09-19
12+ years ago when my surgeon told me I had breast cancer (my second bout with cancer), she gave me this book. Not only did it help me develop, sustain and exude a positive attitude during my entire treatment phase, but it made me a touchstone for anyone else who was diagnosed with cancer and contacted me. Since that time, whenever someone that is near and dear to me, someone that I truly love and want to do something positive for when they are diagnosed with cancer, I give them a copy of this book. Not one of them has died to date. My most recent gift of the book has been to my husband and he is visibly changing his attitude as he reads it.
Not your fault!.......2007-07-12
When I was diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma, I read a wide variety of "inspirational" cancer survivor books. The Bloch's Foundation's "Fighting Cancer" (free just contact them) and Norman Cousin's "Anatomy of an Illness" really resonated for me, made sense and reinforced my focus. Bernie Siegel's books on the other hand made me feel that the disease was my fault for having the "wrong" personality and that if I allowed any negative thoughts into my mind, I was putting my recovery in doubt. Heck most of my thoughts during treatment were negative, real negative! I literally threw his books in the trash, probably more of a symbolic gesture, but it felt good. BTW I am cancer free for the last 16 years, fathered a child and getting a kick out every day.
A powerful message but not scientifically prooven.......2007-06-26
Bernie's central theme is that there is a strong correlation between emotional health and physical health. However he rarely cites any scientific evidence for his claim. He keeps repeating this message based on his experiences with random patients. Surely one can conclude many things from random patients, but a theory has to applicable accross a large sample. There has to be a 'control' if the study is to have any scientific merit. I wished he had shown more of these studies.
This would definitely be a five star book had the author been more scientific in prooving his point. Nevertheless I do personally agree with it.
hope, but not false hope.......2007-05-15
I'd pretty much accepted that i was going to die from cancer. My doctors had too. My friend gave me this book and it caused a huge attitude shift in me. Now I feel that I have it within me to heal and live a long happy and healthy life. I've been told there is nothing medically can be done for me. If I hadn't read this book first I would have just laid down and died when they told me. But now I've opened myself up to other tools for healing - good diet, wheatgrass, reiki, meditation and absolutely no sugar. Time will tell, but I think I'm on the right track.
I thought this book was so good that I ordered a copy to give to my oncologist. He's a lovely man and I believe his desire to help his patients will lead him to use this book as a useful tool in the future.
a read that cheers you up.......2007-05-10
Everybody who is confused and scared about what they are going through due to serious health problems should read this book. "Healthy" people also, they will learn a lot.
Book Description
For nearly 35 years, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has been a driving force in the field of EMS education, first by publishing Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured. Now, the Ninth Edition continues that dedication and commitment to training future EMT-Basics and the instructors who are paving their way.
Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured, Ninth Edition is the center of an integrated teaching and learning system that will help define the future direction of EMS education. It combines comprehensive medical content with dynamic new features and interactive technology to better support instructors and to help prepare students for the field.
An interactive skills DVD is packaged free with each copy of the text.
Customer Reviews:
Everything you need to know to be an EMT-B.......2007-03-27
It has many illustrations, in depth anatomy coverage. However, sometimes there's critical scenarios that are past over very quickly, and you might not think it's important. Also, there should be some NREMT sample questions at the end of each question.
The EMT book that could.......2007-02-20
So the book came in good condition. It works for me and is great for learning from. Might I mention it is a text book so if your looking at buying it then you probly have to buy it anyway.
Excellent, but short of goal..........2006-08-04
This book and DVD is probably the best written text for EMT-B there is. Take the time (a lot!) to read it thoroughly. It does miss the mark if you solely rely on it to take the National EMT-B test: press your instructor's for the many detail's not in this book that are on the test if you want to pass!
Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured, Ninth Edition (Purchased on 01/11/2006).......2006-03-03
It's horriable. I still havn't recieved it, and the dates you say the item will ship keep changing. This is for a class, and we've reached mid-term and I still have not recieved this book. It's a good thing i found a loner, won't be buying class materials from amazon anymore.
Denny Hostetler
denny@sopris.net
Amazon.com
Mehmet Oz is a Renaissance man of cardiac care, combining yoga, aromatherapy, hypnosis, energy healing, music therapy, acupuncture, and visual imagery into his surgery practice at the Complementary Care Unit of New York City's Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. He's adamant that the relationship between traditional and alternative medicine should be symbiotic, not mutually exclusive. His patients are proof of this: when treated holistically, not as just "another transplant patient" with a plaque-addled heart, they perceive less pain during surgery and recuperation, are less likely to suffer depression, and heal more quickly.
While med school at the University of Pennsylvania didn't expose Oz to the holistic healing methods he employs today, his upbringing in Turkey and exposure to cultures worldwide did leave him open to new ideas. Oz helped develop the LVAD, or left ventricular assist device, which helps the heart of a patient awaiting a transplant keep pumping. Piqued when he was asked about his patients, "But has restoring their hearts restored their health?"--and he had to respond, "No"--Oz started incorporating one alternative method after another into his practice. He started with massage after seeing how it rejuvenated his wife after childbirth.
Healing from the Heart is not for the weak of stomach; Oz occasionally gets graphic, such as in the opening heart-transplant scene: "I finished closing the last tiny bleeder, then called for the electric saw, which was plugged in and handed to me by its metallic handle ... the saw cut through the bone like soft pine." If there's anything that might inspire you to pass up greasy French fries, this book is it. Current cardiac patients and their families will be enthralled by the tale of Oz's holistic revolution and his patient-success stories, and other health practitioners would do well to pay attention to what he advocates. --Erica Jorgensen
Book Description
"The medicine of the new millennium."--Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Words
Dr. Mehmet Oz, celebrated heart surgeon and co-founder of the Complementary Care Center at New York's Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, is spearheading the health-care revolution that is yielding powerful new healing tools that will forever change the way we think of medicine. In this ground-breaking book, he describes his pioneering work--combining cutting-edge Western medicine with such Eastern techniques as acupuncture and chi-gong, as well as such controversial therapies as hypnosis, music, massage, reflexology, aromatherapy, and energy healing. The inspiring and affecting stories of his patients are the heart of this book--from the extraordinary discipline of Frank Torre, who used his professional sports training to "psych" himself into healing after heart transplant surgery, to the "impossible" recovery of blues great Johnny Copeland, who was roused from a seemingly impenetrable coma through the force of his own music. In recounting his patients' experiences, Dr. Oz forges a blueprint for the radical new medicine of the next millennium--drawing on the best from Eastern and Western therapies and empowering patients to become partners with doctors in promoting their own recovery.
Customer Reviews:
An unexpected side effect.......2007-02-16
I rate this book very highly with relation to what it teaches regarding cardial care.
What also struck me is a reference to what he experienced in Turkey, were Dr. Oz spent a vacation as a child or teenager. He refers to this somewhat timidly.
Can you imagine: there was no toilet paper. It was explained to him, that Turkish people, like Indonesians and other Asian people refrain from rubbing an obnoxious substance into a tender skin with paper, which Western people have been led to believe represents cleaning, but rather prefer using water and their left hand.
People that use their right hand's middle finger to signal derision, don't know what they are signaling about. Dr. Oz mentions, that the Eastern method of personal hygiene also diminishes the survival rate of hemorrhoids.
So it would seem that the book promotes health of heart as well as of another , but less admired, part of the human anatomy. A double whammy so to speak.
Not yet Synergy.......2006-11-07
Dr. Oz is, I guess, trying to be a complementary surgeon, and he does okay in his explanations of the typical complements i.e. yoga, music, but he is still a surgeon, and his belief in surgery comes through loud and clear. Just as the "YOU" books are deceptive in their attempt to woo the reader into believing this is a new approach to medicine. Alternative therapies were mainstream medicine long before Oz decided to be a revolutionary. Hard to read a book based on false premises. I much prefer the truth, even it sounds to some as being "too loving." Read Rayna Gangi, Deepak Chopra- let these guys go be surgeons.
Heart on Heart!!.......2006-11-04
Great information and easy read. I learned more in one book than the other 5 I read on the heart and the things we can do to help heal. As a yoga instructor I will recommend this to my ailling students.
The Heart Can Thrive on Positive Thoughts........2006-06-19
Dr. Oz, the heart wizard, is of Turkish descent and attempts to combine East and West traditions of healing during post-surgery. He is a heart surgeon located in New York City. First of all, he is searching for the elusive one universal healing endeavor. Some things we all need are recommended such as Love is a major healing force, as is religious faith in one God. He is of the opinion that modern medicine is not perfect. Nothing is perfect, not even beauty, he says.
Music can be healing or it can turn destructive if your favorite network plays exactly what you dislike the most, as mine is currently doing, as an irritant. Believe me, I have the emails to prove it is done on purpose just to make me hurt. But I push a button until that awful stuff is over, so it really doesn't fulfill the purpose they intend. There are devils on earth.
Pets can be a reason to live. Some are actual life savers for their owners. The purpose of healing is to bring us in harmony with ourselves. Sounds like Depock Chopra.
Our minds and emotions affect our immune systems. Depression, loneliness, and stress (brains and bodies) can cause death. Emotions are not only in our heads but affect all of our body cells. All cells are geared to know what each is supposed to do, independent of messages from the brain.
He talked about the Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid, god of Love. She needed the knife so as to be armed to deal with consequences. Who knows when an ardent lover will turn violent.
A Good Combination.......2006-02-23
The view that all types of medicine (western and eastern) working together makes sense. This book seems to encorage a balance between both. I enjoyed it.
Book Description
The Making of a Surgeon in the 21st Century is a highly personalized description of one individual's experiences during a five-year residency in general surgery at a major university hospital. It describes the personal challenges and rewards, the drama of triumph and tragedy, the agony of indecision and the thrill of success. Residency is the most profoundly life-altering sequence of events in a surgeon's life.
What does it take to make a surgeon?
It takes a college degree and a medical school education, followed by a residency. And it takes a willingness to subordinate one's personal life to acquiring the skills and knowledge which a surgeon must possess. This sacrifice takes its toll - on families, on mental health, on life-style. A surgical trainee may not get out on his own until well in his thirties - living, in the meantime, a meager existence at best.
Post-graduate training in surgery is longer than that of any other medical specialty, five years at least. Tortuous on-call schedules often demand exceedingly long work hours - 100-hour work weeks being the norm. Compounding the problem are very high stress levels, the burdens shouldered by the resident's family in his frequent absence and often an enormous educational debt.
Nevertheless, every year hundreds of fresh medical school graduates compete for the few available positions. They are consistently the very best of their classes.
Why would otherwise intelligent, highly motivated individuals actively seek such a miserable existence?
Surgeons have, of course, been glorified in the mass media as the swaggering, brilliant, fiercely independent cowboys of the medical profession. Their compensation has also been great. But beyond this is a personal quality best defined as decisiveness. They want to make the difference, in no uncertain terms. In surgery, when the patient enters the operating room he is suffering from disease. Thanks to the surgeon, he may be wheeled out cured. It doesn't happen every time, of course, but the possibility is there (in other disciplines of medicine "cure" is, unfortunately, an unusual event). Who wouldn't want to be such a healer, making a palpable, tangible difference?
Customer Reviews:
Honest although not very entertaining.......2007-08-04
The Making of a Surgeon in the 21st Century is an honest account of the challenges and satisfaction that many surgeons-in-training could relate to. He explains what surgeons go through in easy to understand language and probably it would be a worthwhile read for the families of surgeons-in-training to give them insight and understanding of the process. Dr Miller is not a particularly entertaining writer - certainly not in the same league as Atul Gawande - but that is possibly one of the things that make the experiences seem more genuine.
A Colorful and Interesting Account.......2006-06-24
Medical memoirs have become a popular genre. Most are quite revealing as to the virtual hell a four to five year resident must experience to become a qualified practitioner. The resident surgeon's experience has to be the most hellish in terms of the amount of hours worked, (100 hour weeks) the pressure brought to bear from the attending staff, sometimes extremely sadistic, abrasive and demeaning, not to mention the continuos mental strain from lack of sleep and the stress on the residents family, some families, unfortunately, disintegrate at some point along the way. Craig Miller's book clearly expresses all these things, however it is the spirit in which he communicates these experiences that makes his memoir worthwhile reading.
A better word would be a colourful account of his experiences as a resident. He not only explains the program in easy to comprehend prose, it is his anecdotes, describing the many characters that make-up this world that is entertaining as well as intriguing. About halfway through the text, I wondered if he had changed the names of the attending staff, nurses, and fellow surgeons that he profiles, because his characterizations are really, for the most part, quite scathing. In some cases the descriptions bordered on the libellous, smelling a legal suit some time in the future. However I'm sure his editors took this into consideration before publication. I certainly hope so.
The most revealing and educational part of the book was Miller's explanation of the standard step-by-step procedure (the Advanced Trauma Life Support protocols) when working in the ER, the initial steps of trauma management. Interestingly it is broken down simply so that the attending staff do not have to "think", but sequentially run through this procedure of "A is for Airway, B is for Breathing, C is for circulation, D is for Disability and E is for exposure." (P. 207) Miller is extremely annoyed how TV dramas as well as `reality' documentaries give the wrong impression to add to the pathos. In fact the ATLS protocols, following the A, B, C, D, E standard procedure avoids the chaos, ensuring the best for the trauma victim. This section of the text was extremely informative.
By the end of Miller's Chief Residency, he had the confidence and the confidence of his teachers to forge on alone, and realized he had truly become a surgeon. Having read the book in an afternoon, his writing was such that I felt his relief and sense of accomplishment by the end of his five-year residency. This has to be one of the most difficult and gruelling training out of all the professions, physically, intellectually and emotionally. In the Epilogue, Miller expresses his ambivalence about the current residency system in terms of its viciousness and amazing effectiveness in producing top-notch surgeons. The system hasn't changed since the 19th century. The process certainly takes its toll but for a price and is the price worth it?
A recommended read for anyone interested in the education of a surgeon.
More like, "The Whining of a Resident".......2006-05-08
William Nolen's original "The Making of a Surgeon" was a near epic inspirational recounting of one's surgical training. It celebrated the training process that molded eager, talented young doctors into, what else, surgeons. He portrayed a system that was necessarily grueling in order to insure that the products were worthy and capable of having people's very lives placed into their hands. Miller's tale, on the other hand, is more the revisionist whining of a worker who believes his boss never appreciated his talents or efforts. The entire book reads much like the faculty roast he recounts near the end: a steady spiteful payback; a re-vengeful, cathartic diatribe in which the targets are the very faculty and institution that tolerated him as a green, imperfect but promising young recruit and trained him to be a surgeon. If your preference is inspiration, stick with the original. If you enjoy wallowing in self-pity and pointing the fingers at others to explain your own shortcomings, you'll enjoy Miller's version.
The Making of a Surgeon in the 21st Century.......2006-04-23
I agree........this book was very factual and intertaining at the same time. I liked his style of writing and felt like he was right beside me, speaking about his experiences. I cheered in the end. The brutal years that he went through in his training came to a perfect end with the roast! He finally got "his day"!
A natural follow up to Dr. Nolen's book.......2005-10-16
The world of surgical training has changed tremendously over the past few years. As little as 5 years ago, the rule in surgical residency training was 110-120 hour-work weeks and even some rotations demanded 24 hour in-house coverage for several weeks at a time. This "old school" period is brilliantly narrated by William A. Nolen in "The Making of a Surgeon", but today's reality, significantly different, was captured splendidly by Dr. Miller.
Dr. Miller comes through with what feels like a natural follow-up of Dr. Nolen's work. There are interesting comparisons of several features of our current training as opposed to that of Dr. Nolen's era.
This book was very entertaining, critical and even funny. Suitable for both the non-health system related reader, as well as medical students and residents as a way of comparing our own training. Dr. Miller managed to explain technical terms in a very simple and short fashion that doesn't interrupt his rhythm even for the expert surgical readers.
I highly recommend this book particularly to medical students contemplating a surgical career. If you don't find yourself laughing at Miller's humor, then surgery might not be your most suitable future!
Product Description
The only First Responder training program endorsed by a national organization, First Responder, Fourth Edition continues with an assessment-based approach to First Responder training. The Fourth Edition fully integrates the 2005 CPR and ECC guidelines and includes new chapters on: Communications and Documentation Geriatric Emergencies Terrorism Awareness Designed to meet the needs of law enforcement personnel, fire fighters, rescue squad personnel, athletic trainers, college students, and laypersons, the new features found in the Fourth Edition will help students take the next step toward becoming outstanding First Responders. These features include: Endorsement by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons You are the Provider, attention-grabbing case studies found in every chapter Special Population Tips, discussing the specific needs and emergency care of special populations, including pediatric, geriatric, and special needs patients Enhanced skill drills First Responder Practical Skills Review DVD, packaged free with the Fourth Edition
Customer Reviews:
This one is DOA.......2002-04-18
If you are looking for a good EMT book, I would take my business over to the Brady series. Did the editor actually look at this thing? I would have to say no! Forget about it, move on.
First responder.......2000-02-12
For the most part the book is very educational & easy to follow. Although there are many misspelled words, wrong or conflicting answers. Also, many topic areas taught aren't the way it is in the "real" world. To me it didn't look like the auther did much proof reading prior to it being published. Hopefully, there'll be a better book on the market soon.
Average customer rating:
- Plan to stay up all night.
- Wow
- Another Winner for Gerritsen
- Enjoyed the ride
- Great story
|
The Surgeon
Tess Gerritsen
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
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Binding: Hardcover
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Life Support
ASIN: 0345447832
Release Date: 2001-08-21 |
Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, August 2001: Tess Gerritsen left a very successful career as an internist to raise her children and devote more time to writing. After several books that have had moderate success, Gerritsen has now written a gruesome and frightening story that should put her among the top women thriller writers working today.
A serial killer is on the loose in Boston. The victims are killed in a particularly nasty way: cut with a scalpel on the stomach, the intestines and uterus removed, and then the throat slashed. The killer obviously has medical knowledge and has been dubbed "the Surgeon" by the media. Detective Thomas Moore and his partner Rizzoli of the Boston Homicide Unit have discovered something that makes this case even more chilling. Years ago in Savannah a serial killer murdered in exactly the same way. He was finally stopped by his last victim, who shot him as he tried to cut her. That last victim is Dr. Catherine Cordell, who now works as a cardiac surgeon at one of Boston's prestigious hospitals. As the murders continue, it becomes obvious that the killer is drawing closer and closer to Dr. Cordell, who is becoming so frightened that she is virtually unable to function. But she is the only person who can help the police catch this copycat killer. Or is it a copycat? To complicate matters even further, Detective Moore, often referred to as Saint Thomas as he continues to mourn the loss of his wife, is getting emotionally involved with the doctor.
The suspense in The Surgeon is almost unbearable. The writing is superb and the stunning twists and turns make it almost impossible to put down. -- Otto Penzler
Book Description
In her most masterful novel of medical suspense, New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen creates a villain of unforgettable evil--and the one woman who can catch him before he kills again.
He slips into their homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, unaware of the horrors they soon will endure. The precision of the killer's methods suggests he is a deranged man of medicine, propelling the Boston newspapers and the frightened public to name him "The Surgeon."
The cops' only clue rests with another surgeon, the victim of a nearly identical crime. Two years ago, Dr. Catherine Cordell fought back and killed her attacker before he could complete his assault. Now she hides her fears of intimacy behind a cool and elegant exterior and a well-earned reputation as a top trauma surgeon.
Cordell's careful facade is about to crack as this new killer recreates, with chilling accuracy, the details of Cordell's own ordeal. With every new murder he seems to be taunting her, cutting ever closer, from her hospital to her home. Her only comfort comes from Thomas Moore, the detective assigned to the case. But even Moore cannot protect Cordell from a brilliant hunter who somehow understands--and savors--the secret fears of every woman he kills.
Filled with the authentic detail that is the trademark of this doctor turned author . . . and peopled with rich and complex characters--from the ER to the squad room to the city morgue--here is a thriller of unprecedented depth and suspense. Exposing the shocking link between those who kill and cure, punish and protect, The Surgeon is Tess Gerritsen's most exciting accomplishment yet.
Customer Reviews:
Plan to stay up all night........2007-06-22
If you don't stay up until the wee hours frantically turning pages in order to see what happens next, you'll definitely lose a few hours of sleep as you listen to the creaks and groans of your house and wonder who -- or what -- is out there!
Gerritsen has always been a standout in the field of the police procedural and medical thriller, but she really makes her mark with this mystery. From Police Detective Jane Rizzoli and her partner Barry Frost, to the evil and satanic Warren Hoyt, every character nearly jumps off the page -- and had me jumping out of my skin.
Warning: This book, while not as graphic or distrubing as, say, The Shining, is not comfortable bedtime reading. Read at your own risk!
Wow.......2007-06-14
Let's be brief. This is one of the best thrillers I have ever read.
Another Winner for Gerritsen.......2007-04-21
This wasn't as good as some of the work done by Tess Gerritsen but it was still a good book. It didn't have as much suspense but it was well written and never dull. A must read.
Enjoyed the ride.......2007-03-08
I've just sworn off Karin Slaughter's books (because of her anti-Christianity agenda that is both annoying and disturbing) and am thrilled to find a new author! I began the Surgeon after dinner and finally finished it about 1:30 a.m. I absolutely couldn't put it down. The finale had some flaws (like the long Asian hair/local missing girl/wig bit of convenience), but I still loved the book. I can't wait to read another Gerritsen book!
Great story.......2007-02-19
Very gripping - I read almost the whole book on a long plane ride. It certainly made the trip much more pleasant.
Book Description
The first Navajo woman surgeon combines western medicine and traditional healing.
A spellbinding journey between two worlds, this remarkable book describes surgeon Lori Arviso Alvord's struggles to bring modern medicine to the Navajo reservation in Gallup, New Mexico--and to bring the values of her people to a medical care system in danger of losing its heart.
Dr. Alvord left a dusty reservation in New Mexico for Stanford University Medical School, becoming the first Navajo woman surgeon. Rising above the odds presented by her own culture and the male-dominated world of surgeons, she returned to the reservation to find a new challenge. In dramatic encounters, Dr. Alvord witnessed the power of belief to influence health, for good or for ill. She came to merge the latest breakthroughs of medical science with the ancient tribal paths to recovery and wellness, following the Navajo philosophy of a balanced and harmonious life, called Walking in Beauty. And now, in bringing these principles to the world of medicine,
The Scalpel and the Silver Bear joins those few rare works, such as
Healing and the Mind, whose ideas have changed medical practices-and our understanding of the world.
Customer Reviews:
A thoughtful exploration of Indian culture and medicine.......2007-07-26
Daughter of a full-blooded Navajo father and white mother, Lori Arviso Alvord grew up on a New Mexico reservation in a family that took pride in its native heritage, but followed few of the traditional ways. She attended Navajo schools but never learned the language; she knew her clan relationships and enjoyed the security of tribal connections but seldom attended ceremonies or understood the depth of meaning in the Navajo concept "Walk In Beauty."
Such a person might expect to shed the remnants of tribal culture on leaving the reservation to become a high-powered surgeon, a career that by its very nature flies in the face of Navajo precepts like privacy and self-effacement.
Indeed, throughout her memoir, co-authored by Elizabeth Cohen Van Pelt, Alvord seems to straddle two worlds separated by an uncomfortable gulf. She first looked upon the deepness of that gulf at Dartmouth.
"For a girl who had never been far from Crownpoint, New Mexico, the green felt incredibly juicy, lush, beautiful and threatening." Unable to see the horizon, she felt claustrophobic. But the culture shock was worse. "I thought people talked too much, laughed too loud, asked too many personal questions, and had no respect for privacy." Navajos do not put themselves forward and cooperation is valued over competition. Not a good prescription for success at an Ivy League school.
At Dartmouth she began to feel her tribal identity more strongly and wonder if a kinaalda ceremony (a celebration of womanhood) would have helped empower her in such alien surroundings. But not until after medical school at Stanford, where she was forced to break numerous taboos (Navajo never touch the dead, for instance) and joined a profession where it is essential to ask prying, intimate questions and invade another's personal space at will, did Alvord really begin to explore the philosophical grounding of Navajo culture.
Becoming a surgeon at the Gallup Indian Medical Center, close to the reservation, Alvord notices that her patients do better when they are calm and relaxed, that harmony - even in the operating room when the patient is unconscious - is important for recovery.
She grows more interested in the Navajo philosophy that "everything in life is connected and influences everything else." To "Walk in Beauty" a person strives to live in balance, symmetry and harmony with everything and everyone else.
While this is an ancient precept, held in common with many other cultures and enjoying something of a renaissance in American medicine today, Alvord comes up with a particularly striking example. One of her surgery patients, a young woman, was the first to die of a strange illness that swept through the Navajo nation, killing 11.
A doctor working for the Centers for Disease Control, Ben Muneta, visited a medicine man, a hataalii, who told him "the illness was caused by an excess of rainfall, which had caused the pinon trees to bear too much fruit." There was "a significant deviation from the natural harmony of the world."
The medicine man showed a sand painting of a mouse and said that twice before in years of excess rainfall a similar disease had struck. " `Look to the mouse,' " he said. Weeks later the CDC determined that the Hantavirus was contracted from the droppings of infected deer mice. The deer mouse population had surged due to an excess of pinon nuts. "It was the rain."
Alvord's tone is quiet, reserved. It does not seem easy for her to describe the alcoholism of her charming father or the difficulties and generosity of her (married at 16) mother. Though she takes us to a nightlong ceremony for the sick and celebrates the strength her patients draw from medicine-man visits, she never explains why it takes her so long to visit a hitaalii during her own pregnancy. Or why she never approaches a medicine man to discuss cross-cultural treatments despite her growing conviction of the efficacy of the "whole body" approach.
While most of the book concentrates on her work and her struggle to reconcile cultures, she provides a wide, sad look at reservation life, beset by poverty and "white mans'" diseases. The long grief of history resides in the alcoholism and the self-loathing of so many - a balance that can never be put right.
At last Alvord leaves. Seeing it as the next natural step in her own "life trail", she returns to Dartmouth as a surgeon and a dean of minority and student affairs. At Dartmouth, she hopes, she can teach the Navajo "Walk In Beauty" principles to new doctors as well as working within the established system to bring better care to her own people.
The First Navajo Woman Surgeon........2007-04-09
I am full-blooded Navajo, I was taught to believe in my traditonal ways and it disappoints me that she has talked about very scared ceremonies.
Solid credentials but too abstract.......2003-12-04
--Dr Alvord writes about her journeys as a Native American student and physician. The book seems clearly designed for non-technical readers rather than the professional medical community, and there's little medical jargon. She uses her own difficult pregnancy and the death of a beloved grandmother as case studies in integrating Western medicine and Navajo ideas.
--On the one hand, it's worth reading this book just to hear such an inspirational story from such a role model. Dr Alvord tells her story with dignity and courage and she has many good ideas about listening to patients and integrating Balance and Harmony in our profession (although these ideas don't seem as radical or as rare within the medical community as she seems to imply, and I don't think she does anyone a great service by implying they are).
--On the other hand, the authors remained disappointingly abstract, even given the limitations of confidentiality and space. The stories of Navajo healing barely scratched the surface and the book was pretty scanty with practical advice that would help non-Native healers understand Native American patients. I'd love to have heard her perspectives on the magnitude of Native American health problems, how she handled the constant pressures of time and funding, or how she successfully used traditional Native American methods to help manage serious medical-social problems (i.e. alcohol use, diabetogenic diets, family pressures, basic compliance and responsibility issues, etc). In short, I'd like to have heard more about her successes.
--The book's perspective gives a good counterpoint to those who criticize Western medicine as too impersonal/sterile/uncaring/whatever, while they fail to demonstrate how to predictably improve things and still efficiently deliver technically competent health care to people with different levels of motivation and understanding. Western medicine works beautifully in its own niche, but it will be made to work less efficiently if we mess around with the wrong things. Perhaps medicine will improve if we balance the responsibilities of patients to live a healthy lifestyle with the responsibilities of healers to carefully listen to patients and then help them heal.
--This book did not practically help me to do this, so I cannot give it five stars despite my respect for her credentials. I do look forward to a sequel.
--Other books which may be of interest include Blessings (by Dr. A. Organick), The Dancing Healers, and Primary Care of Native American Patients.
READ THIS BOOK.......2003-05-10
I picked up this book and I could NOT put it down. What a wonderful journey described here....how she interlocks traditional medicine with Navajo, how harmony and positive spirit is such a process in the healing world. You will not be disappointed with this read. I have shared this with all those close to me. Make it part of your list
What We All Want in a Doctor.......2002-03-18
This book was recommended by a friend, and after I read it, I chose it as my selection for my book club. Living in the Southwest, the insight into Native American culture was especially educational. Alvord seems to confirm what so many of us as patients have been saying for years: give us a doctor who will take the time to get to know us on a personal level and treat the whole person. I would recommend this to men and women, young and old alike! What an amazing woman.
Books:
- Bleeding Hearts (China Bayles Mystery)
- Blue Highways: A Journey into America
- Bones Would Rain From the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs
- Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir
- Brokeback Mountain: Now a Major Motion Picture
- C Is for Corpse (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries)
- Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers Deceive You
- Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder
- City of Bones (Mortal Instruments)
- Club Dead (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 3)
Books Index
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