Fans of Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande will appreciate this first collection by another astute observer of the medical...
A doctor’s insightful reflections on the disconnect between how physicians should practice and how they actually practice.
Although she is a consulting producer for the TV show House, Sanders (Medicine/Yale Univ. School of Medicine) admits that movie and TV doctors make diagnoses seemingly by magic or by uncovering a single overlooked clue. Real doctors listen carefully to patients and examine them, a procedure ignored in fiction but also by many of the current generation of doctors who often prefer tests and advanced technology. “Ultimately,” she writes, “the primary work of doctors is to treat pain and relieve suffering.” Sanders tells the story of one patient who was feverish and clearly suffering from a severe infection, yet massive intravenous antibiotics weren’t helping. A doctor noticed that one of the patient’s toes looked gangrenous. When it was amputated, the infection vanished. Patients and doctors yearn intensely for a diagnosis—so intensely, in fact, that they may find one that doesn’t actually exist. Writes Sanders: “Translating the big, various, complicated, contradictory story of the human being who is sick, into the spare, stripped down, skeletal language of the patient in the bed, and then making that narrative reveal its conclusion—that is the essence of diagnosis.” The author also delves into Lyme disease, a tick-born infection that certainly exists but has given rise to a controversial movement in which a small group of patients suffering fatigue, pains, fever and general misery see a small group of doctors who diagnose a chronic Lyme infection that may require a lifetime of treatment. Studies cast doubt on the existence of this ailment, but both patients and doctors dismiss them, as they dismissed past skepticism of diseases such as the Epstein-Barr virus.
Fans of Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande will appreciate this first collection by another astute observer of the medical profession.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7679-2246-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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