Gawande, Atul - Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

I ran to get this after I finished Gawande's Better. I think I may like it a smidgen better than Better, even though this is an earlier book, but most of that is simply subject-matter preference on my part. Both books are very well-written, compulsive reads.

While Better is on improving systems, Complications is about when systems fail, particularly systems in the medical industry. That said, Gawande also looks at imperfections in medicine overall, from uncertainty in diagnoses to the need for residents to get practice vs. the right of patients to get the best care possible to who is to blame when something in a hospital goes wrong.

As in Better, I enjoy reading Gawande partly because of his prose, but mainly because of how he manages to talk about things. In most of his essays, I can't actually tell how the cases will go or what the outcome will be, which is a nice change. I also like the way Gawande discusses issues; he gives the impression of having thought a lot about various angles and pros and cons.

I suspect some parts of this book may gross people out, given that Gawande goes into surgery, flesh-eating bacteria, and the medical procedure for inserting a line into a patient's chest vein (I think it was the vena cava? But I may be wrong). Parts of it made me twitch, but I am also fascinated by things like this. For reference, my favorite parts of Peeps were the parasite chapters. Still, even if you can't read the more graphically detailed sections, I'd rec the other essays anyway, as they're fascinating looks into the world of surgery and into how the medical system works in practice, successes and failures alike.

I vaguely remember someone on the flist posting about Gawande not talking about big pharma? Anyone? Bueller?

Anyway, very cool book, hope Gawande writes something new soon.