Atul Gawande

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Throughout Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, Atul Gawande chronicles his various experiences and adventures as a surgical resident. In his first published work Dr.Gawande stresses that surgery and medicine are ever changing and imperfect sciences, hence the title. The book is broken into three parts: Fallibility, Mystery, and Uncertainty. In the first part, Dr Gawande discusses the ubiquitous room for improvement in a surgeon’s method and in medicine. He presents the idea that doctors are no where near perfect and often make mistakes. He elaborates on the medicinal learning process by pointing out the immorality of using live human beings as practice dummies. In the second part, Mystery, Dr. Gawande writes about mystery…show more content…
Gawande addresses the lengths certain patients are willing to go in order to get rid of their medical conditions. For example, Dr. Gawande interviewed a woman who suffered from chronic blushing. Consequentially, she traveled from her home in Indianapolis to Switzerland to receive a surgery with a multitude of potential negative consequences. Having grown so tired from her condition, she had the surgery despite the assorted hazards. Lastly, Dr. Gawande examines the uncertainty doctors are faced with during their careers. In the third part, he talks about the friction created when doctor and patient disagree on treatment options and the ambiguity surrounding some decisions. In the last chapter, Dr. Gawande talks about a seemingly mundane case of skin disease. One of his patients was diagnosed with cellulitis, a common skin disease. However the patients symptoms matched another lethal disease that Dr. Gawande had recently treated. Dr. Gawane ended up rechecking the patient and diagnosed her with necrotizing fasciitis instead of cellulitis. As a result his patient survived without amputations which is rare for someone with necrotizing fasciitis. As a result, Dr. Gawande sums up his novel with the thought that sometimes a hunch saves a life but no one ever knows for

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