Customer Reviews

The Book Of Medical Mistakes: Real-Life Accounts of the Most Horrific Medical Disasters and Those Who Survived Their Ordeal

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This book is definitely not the book to buy if you are looking for a credible source on medical mistakes. However, if accuracy is not a concern, it is an interesting book to read.

The book tells of countless blunders by early medical practitioners up to modern day doctors. I learned a lot of interesting about the history behind many of present medical practices. Some topics covered are medications, surgeries, and their side effects, fraudulent billing practices, negligent doctors, and unethical procedures and practices.

This book is extremely sensational. It is fast to make claims and statements that are not backed up by facts. The book offers no references or citations as to where to where the data and information was gathered. There are also hundreds of grammar errors and typos.

This book is a horribly inaccurate collection of stories. I found several mistakes well beyond just "typos". For example, the authors describe a normal sleep stage (Rapid eye movement sleep) as abnormal and causing "suffering" in patients. The case of Phineas Gage (p. 215) is also mistakenly described. The authors take advantage of the fact that most people have not taken a course in neuroanatomy or basic physiology to advance their agenda. I bought the book in the hope that it would be an important addition to my education, but was sorely disappointed. I now believe that any "fact" put forth by these authors should be taken with a grain of salt.

OK, the writing can get a bit flippant, and there are lots of typos! Still, for a nifty exploration of some really seriously bad medical errors, this is a fine read! Starting out with the thalidimide babies of the early 1960's, some really creepy stuff, and the lives of some of these individuals laters,moving on to cosmetic surgery mishaps, cases of poorly written and misread perscriptions, operations on the wrong part of the body, the Dalkon Shield disaster, and very weird medical ideas over the ages, the short mistreatments related here are cause for concern, and may provide a little numbness as you plow through. So for someone near illiterate in medicine and pharmacy, this is a bizarre and sometime frightening book!

I concur with a previous viewer that many of the facts are suspect. The initial chapters show promise, including a fairly thorough treatment of thalidomide, but the rest of the book appears not have been copy edited with typos galore.

I found masses of repeating paragraphs (word for word identical) in sections just a few pages away from each other - I thought my attention span was initially to blame. This is an extremely slap dash book.

Lots of references to 'The Cook report' give away the author's strong connection to television and the desire to entertain over 100% factual accuracy and references.

The grammar is not wrong,but is the way the English spell!.Has the first reviewer even thought of this or even aware of this?.....what curious arrogance to criticise the authors from a country that invented the language!...................