THE SOLID GOLD STETHOSCOPE

What with Illich, investigative journalism, and patients' rights groups pointing the way, it appears to be open season on the medical profession. Armed with an M.D. himself, author Berman takes even greater license. For he has produced an unrelenting high-decibel attack on all members of the profession from G.P. to neurosurgeon, proctologist to psychiatrist. Without exception he finds them stupid, selfish, and greedy, ever eager to line their pockets and bury their mistakes. Perhaps he thinks this is satire in the Swiftian tradition, calculated to upset and shake the moral fiber of the reader. Perhaps he believes that the sheer weight of exaggeration will wear down the rock of known abuses. He is dead wrong. His prose is heavy-handed, repetitive, unfunny. Ultimately one wonders what motivates such a performance--what psychic itch or scab so burns that the writer runs amok in words. Physician, heal thyself!