Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Atul Gawande

Profile Books, Jul 9, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 389 pages

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

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - ASKelmore - www.librarything.com

CBR 10 BINGO Square: Backlog (Added this to my TBR list on February 12, 2013 - the day I joined Goodreads, apparently) Best for: People who enjoy good writing about medical issues. NOT for those who ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - BookConcierge - LibraryThing

5***** and a ❤ This National Book Award finalist REALLY makes you think! It opens your eyes to the imperfections in our system of medical care. Gawande is a surgical resident (when he wrote it), a ...

Contents

• Authors Note: 1
• The Computer and the Hernia Factory: 35
• Nine Thousand Surgeons: 75
• When Good Doctors Go Bad: 88
• PartIIMystery: 109
• A Queasy Feeling: 130
• Crimson Tide: 146
• The Man Who Couldnt Stop Eating: 162
• PartIIIUncertainty: 187
• The Dead Baby Mystery: 202
• The Case of the Red Leg: 228
• Notes on Sources: 253

About the author

Atul Gawande is a staff member of Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the New Yorker magazine. He is also Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
• Author: Atul Gawande
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Profile Books, 2010
• ISBN: 1847651240, 9781847651242
• Length: 389 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Medical / General; Medical / Surgery / General