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 A future definitely worth striving for December 6, 2008
2 out of 3 found this comment useful.
There is nothing in the twenty-first century that is uninteresting, and after finishing this book the opinion that this is the best time to be alive is reinforced. The advances in medicine that were predicted to occur just a decade ago have proven to be a gross underestimate, as this book clearly shows. Its author is a physician, and also has the virtue of being a technophiliac, but the best part of his writing is his frankness in assessing some of the issues in modern medicine. Treatment modalities, surgical techniques, diagnostics, and prognostics are now more than ever being done with the assistance of technology, some of this technology being highly sophisticated and intelligent.
Genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience, robotic surgery: these are some of the tools of twenty-first century medicine. The author details the use of some of them in the book, and it is amazing to think of just a short time ago they were viewed as purely science fiction. In fact what is being done now and in a few years makes the Hollywood imagination seem sophomoric by comparison.
The author though also goes beyond a mere reporting of technological facts, for he exposes some of the finagling and politics in hospitals in the United States. One example that particularly stands out is his opinion on the "successful" hospital, these being characterized by their collection of "certificates of excellence." They acquire these by what he refers to as the "parasitic" certifying organizations that arbitrarily define novel measures of excellence, and proceed to convince hospitals, through marketing or regulatory pressure, to conform to the artificial standards that they have created. This is a story that is repeated in other professions also, where "certifying" organizations survive only by false pretenses, by asserting that quality exists in a particular business without any justification as to why their measure of quality is better than others.
For those readers such as this reviewer that are not in the medical profession but have worked as analysts or developers perfecting some of the technology that is used by physicians, the author gives some very interesting anecdotes on everyday practice, particularly in surgery rooms. Some of what the author reports can rattle the unsuspecting reader. Indeed, it many instances it is very disconcerting to discover to what degree the surgery room and its personnel are "on the edge."
One can only imagine what things will be like in medicine a decade from now, due mostly in part to technological advances. But cognizance must also be made, and the author of this book does so, to the rising costs of healthcare. Regulatory and governmental agencies will no doubt result in challenging tradeoff issues in the years to come. But with personalized genomic medicine, automated surgery, networked diagnostics, and more data transparency it is likely that the future of medicine will be an exciting one, and one that every living individual hopefully will be participating in.
He's great -- heard him on the radio November 20, 2008
3 out of 3 found this comment useful.
I heard this guy on Terry Gross & Marty Moss-Coane. He was awesome. They don't make doctors like that anymore. At least I can't find them. I got a copy of the book from my husband and read it straight through. If you are interested in how technology is shaping the technical and human side of medicine, you will love this book. It's not often you run across someone who can relate Hypocrates to telemedicine.
this guy must be a genius November 18, 2008
3 out of 3 found this comment useful.
A discussion for the layman about the cutting edge of medical technologies and their various future ramifications; the last chapter focuses on the most elemental technological tool - the human hand (actually the author's father's hand who was also a doctor), which puts the conflict of the entire profession of health care in a humane and sympathetic historical perspective
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