Customer Reviews

Space Doctor

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this an intriguing novel which opens the eyes of the readers as to the problems that future space exploration will face. Especially in the field of medicine.

It forces one to consider alternative means to attain the proper medical treatment that might be used for long term missions in our near future.

A regular ER in zero gravity. Full of probable medical emergencies and the daring that the station's medical personal must take upon themselves to save the lives of their patients.

A departure from aliens science-fiction that still instills the excitement of space pioneering.

Technically oriented doctor who's rich friend gets him to bid and run the clinic on the construction site for the first powersat in geosynchronous earth orbit.

I liked it and re-read it occasionally.

From the Back Cover

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Tom Noel set up the first hospital in orbit.. and it could be the last!

It would cost 150 lives, more or less, to get the GEO satellite on-line and transmitting solar power to an energy starved Earth - that was the estimate of fatal industrial accidents in the mammoth space project.

It was Dr. Tom Noel's job to cut that deadly figure drastically, by designing, staffing, and running a complete emergency ward... 22,400 miles from the nearest hospital. Tom Noels had to re-invent almost every medical technique to allow for weightlessness and the other unknown effects of space, and he improvised brilliantly - but not always sucessfully.

He treated patients who were injured in ways undreamed of in medical history - including a "bullet wound" from a micro-meteorite - lost some, saved some, and would save many more.. if only he managed to stay alive himself!

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An excellent read. As current and foresightful as the day it was first published in 1981. It poses many realistic questions re: the practice of medicine in space.