Atul Gawande is a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and -- from everything I've heard and read about him recently -- one of the best of the new breed of medical writers who devote their prose to informing the general public about important concerns in the world of medicine. If this new book, "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance," is a representative example of his usual writing talent, I will completely agree with the above assessment. This collection of original and previously published essays is highly readable and very interesting. Normally, I am not all that interested in reading about medical topics unless it impacts me personally. I'm not a great fan of hospitals nor am I enthusiastic about going to a physician. Fortunately, for most of my life I have enjoyed relatively excellent health. My attitude, however, changed five years ago and Gawande's book takes on some genuine relevance for me. How so and why?
In a section of his book, entitled "The Mop-Up," Gawande discusses polio and the campaign to wipe it out in Asia wherein he was a momentary observer in the field in 2003. Way back in ancient history, when I was a mere child in the 1940s and America was hit with a polio epidemic, I was diagnosed with polio and almost died. Hence the relevance here for me. But more than that, I am convinced to this day that I was "saved" because of the efforts of a nurse -- I'm sure she was one of Gawande's "positive deviants" which he describes in his book -- who insisted on treating me and others with a controversial treatment (opposed by most of the medical "establishment" at the time) called "The Sister Kenny Method." She never lost a patient, by the way; we all recovered without any significant aftereffects that I know of.
Fortunately, from that time in the 1940s I never needed to be hospitalized again. That is, until 2002. Then I had a heart attack and was forced into a hospital for an angioplasty and had to take note of medical matters, including the state of medical care in this country." So, whereas before that latter year I could ignore books of the type that Gawande writes, I now have a profound interest in all things medical. Even more so since my second heart attack and angioplasty in 2006. (I even subscribe to daily updates via e-mail about medical topics!) I am now very concerned about "better" when it comes to medical care and policy.
Gawande divides his book into three significant sections: Diligence, Doing Right, and Ingenuity. He says that "Diligence" is "the necessity of giving sufficient attention to detail to avoid error and prevail against obstacles." The section "Doing Right" considers topics such as "how much doctors should be paid, and what we owe patients when we make mistakes." Important as these sections are, the final section, "Ingenuity," is of even greater importance in my opinion. Ingenuity, he says, "demands more than anything a willingness to recognize failure" and "arises from deliberate, even obsessive, reflection on failure and a constant searching for new solutions." Amen to that!
Furthermore, Gawande quite realistically concludes: "Betterment is a perpetual labor. The world is chaotic, disorganized, and vexing, and medicine is nowhere spared that reality. To complicate matters, we in medicine are also only human ourselves. ...Yet...to live as a doctor is to live so that one's life is bound up in others' and in science and in the messy, complicated connection between the two. It is to live a life of responsibility. The question...is not whether one accepts the responsibility. Just by doing this work one has. The question is, having accepted the responsibility, how one does such work well." Well said, that. Couldn't agree more.
One of the more politically relevant issues (at least for me) that Gawande discusses is the matter of medical practitioners' involvement in executions. In his essay, "The Doctors of the Death Chamber," he says that "We [doctors and nurses] must do our best to choose intelligently and wisely," and then notes that "Sometimes, however, we will be wrong -- as I think the doctors and nurses are who have used their privileged skills to make possible 876 deaths by lethal injection thus far." I cannot understand how a physician -- "First, do no harm" -- could even contemplate participating in the killing of another human being, even if officially sanctioned. Gawande addresses this issue in what I think is a sensible manner. But the debate on this issue is current, lively and will continue for some time.
I do, however, wish that Gawande had spent more time discussing the future of health care in America as regards the delivery of medical services to all its citizens. He briefly touches on this matter, but not in detail. From my perspective, HMOs are definitely not the solution (they are part of the current problem!) and government-managed health care (socialized medicine) is even less desirable. I mean, the government, in my opinion, cannot even provide a decent public education for our children; how can we expect it to provide decent health care? I have considered a number of proposals, all of them wanting in some way or other. I'd like to see Gawande tackle this problem in a detailed way from a physician's perspective. Maybe another book?
Moreover, regarding the above, it is disturbing to read what one American medical reviewer recently stated: "We spend 50 percent more per capita on health care than any other country, for a total of $2 trillion a year, yet our health system, according to the World Health Organization, ranks 37th worldwide. ...By any measure -- longevity, infant mortality, burden of disease -- we sit in the basement of the industrialized world." For a country that can spend trillions of dollars to wage war and promote "regime changes" throughout the world, that statement is embarrassing and hard to fathom.
All in all, "Better" is a good read and extremely informative. It is full of interesting anecdotes, as well as confronting, if only briefly, some of the major issues in the practice of medicine today such as the influence of money in the healthcare system, the problem of malpractice lawsuits, and medical practice under the tensions of the military battlefield, as well as more mundane issues which are often ignored such as the simple act of hand washing or how nakedness impacts the examination room. Since I have had my own experiences lately with the medical establishment, I can now relate to at least some of the topics that Gawande discusses. Therefore -- and since there is no medical experience like a really personal one -- I highly recommend this book to all readers. I guarantee you'll learn a lot, you'll enjoy the fine writing, and you'll have some thinking to do about the state of medical care in America.
