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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Reading Terro.r. is not an Erro.r., June 5, 2007
This review is from: terrO.R. (Paperback)
I thoroughly enjoyed this short, well-written novel from an anesthesiologist who did not put me to sleep with his first attempt at novel writing. When he commented on one of my reviews about my perceived evils of tort reform, I thought his book would be centered on medical malpractice. Alas, it had an interesting plot and an even more interesting twist that must have intelligence agencies asking themselves why they hadn't thought of it.
In addition to a first-rate plot, the reader can gain an understanding of what our doctors go through everyday wondering when they get out of bed, if one of their patients is going to die in one, on the gurney, or if they will end up in a "lawsuit" instead of scrubs. This must be unnerving for even the most confident and competent physician.
The doctor/author provides as much technical information about the operating room as Tom Clancy can provide about the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. But after a while, to this layman it sounded a lot like the doctor was attempting to"intubate the bandersnatch through the snarknoggin to prevent the patient aspirating his bifurcatedhomeopotatos."
Since this was self-published, I take it the author made the fatal mistake of relying on Microsoft grammar/spelling check too, which can have code blue-level consequences. Microsoft cannot diagnose spacing, double periods.., the wrong preposition, or know when to hyphen-ate if its life depended on it, and it happened enough to be as frightening as watching a surgeon lick a scalpel clean before your surgery. It can scar the reader and writer forever. (Maybe he could sue them for malpractice!) I also wished the Oath had been placed at the beginning, and the non-Hippocratic oath removed. It appeared satirical in an otherwise serious topic.
The book was a pleasant surprise, and the doc has a talented writing style considering English is a "second" language for him. This book will not knock you out.
Reading Terro.r. is not an Erro.r.
P.S. Doc, this Heine's for you!
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A chillingly plausible scenario!, April 17, 2007
This review is from: terrO.R. (Paperback)
In his first outing, Neuschatz has done himself proud and written a novel that bodes well for more work to come! But "TerrO.R." is a debut novel that is not without its flaws.
The good news is that the plot premise is imaginative (dare I say unique), compelling and frightening.
As an anesthesiologist, Dr Philip Newman is all too aware that tragic, sudden, unexplained deaths sometimes occur on the operating table. So when James Walker, a young man in perfect health, succumbs to cardiac arrest during a routine cosmetic surgical tattoo removal, Newman is devastated but not unduly surprised. But when an autopsy is forbidden by the family on religious grounds and a massive malpractice suit is served with such blinding speed that Walker's body has barely had a chance to cool, Newman begins to question events more closely. Eerie similarities between Walker's operating room death and other similar unexplained fatalities have Newman balking at what would otherwise be an automatic out of court settlement of the malpractice suit. With the cooperation of hospitals, surgeons and anesthesiologists from across the country, Newman conducts an Internet based epidemiological investigation that uncovers a plot so frighteningly plausible you'll find the hairs on the back of your neck tingling with horror.
The even better news is that Neuschatz writes well! The daily life and work of an anesthesiologist are included with a wealth of arcane minutiae and technical detail that could easily blow right over the heads of lay readers or simply bore them to death as the plot bogs down and fails to move forward. But Neuschatz seems to have deftly avoided these problems. His writing educates, informs, entertains and manages to keep a compelling plot firmly on track.
Now here's the bad news.
It is clear that Neuschatz has serious criticism to level at the US legal system, the liability insurance system, the overwhelming litigiousness of US society and the fact that many malpractice suits are settled automatically out of court (regardless of actual fault) with the resulting costs being passed on to medical practitioners in the form of increased liability premiums. In fact, it is these very problems that form the quite plausible basis for Neuschatz' ingenious plot premise.
However, Neuschatz let his emotions get in the way of his writing and the resulting ending was a serious letdown for this reader. He forgot that the criminals in his thriller were the perpetrators of an enormous fraud that got discovered. The hospitals, the doctors AND the insurance industry were the victims - I repeat - the victims. But once the plot had been uncovered and revealed for the fraud it was, Neuschatz simply dropped the thriller plotline like a day old hot potato now gone cold and swiveled his gun sights to the insurance industry.
Instead of offering constructive criticism as to how the insurance and legal industry might make changes to prevent the real occurrence of a fictional story like this one, he ended his novel with an epilogue that was pure vitriol and sarcasm directed at judges, medical malpractice lawyers, juries and HMOs. As a result, I was left with the final sour thought that perhaps Neuschatz considered the cons as simple users of a flawed system and the system itself to be the criminal. Neuschatz is entitled to his opinion, of course, but ... purely from the point of view of reviewing "The TerrO.R.", the ending flattened the entire reading experience and dragged what might easily have been a 4 or 5 star exciting debut down to a 3-star overall impression at best.
Paul Weiss
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29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unique Point of View, April 13, 2007
This review is from: terrO.R. (Paperback)
terrO.R. tells the story of Dr. Phillip Newman, an anesthesiologist who has a patient die while under anesthesia in the beginning of the story. The patient was 19 years old, his name was James Walker, and he was having tattoos removed surgically. Inexplicably, things went wrong in the O.R. and James didn't make it. Dr. Newman is puzzled by the phlegmatic reaction of the father to his son's death and further surprised when he is hit with a medical malpractice suit within twenty-four hours of James's death. The suit spirals out of control, and grows from a simple malpractice suit to a suit filed against the hospital for $100 million dollars. It should also be noted that Mr. Walker refused an autopsy for religious reasons.
Having the story told from the point of view of an anesthesiologist is certainly interesting. It may be the only major branch of medicine without a POV represented in literature. We learn *a lot* about what an anesthesiologist does, what their responsibilities are, their successes and frustrations. Although to be honest, I'm not sure I wanted to know much more about that side of the table, so to speak. When I'm out on the operating table, all I want to know is that I'm out.
While this book has a fascinating premise, I have a few minor quibbles. First, the dialogue is largely unbelievable. Even if the ubiquitous (<--itself an overly used word in the book) exclamation points were removed, people just don't talk like this in real life. For example, see the exchange between two doctors that begins on page 100 and ends on page 101. Second, we're party to too many surgeries that don't have anything to do with the plot. What this means is that this short book, already a novella in its own right, could have been shorter. Third, for a medical thriller, I didn't find myself glued to the page with heart-beating intensity. Not every thriller is going to provide a perfect example of such intensity, but it should be there somewhere. This felt too clinical, almost like a write-up of post-operative notes.
For as technical as the author was in his descriptions, one description puzzled me. His wife ordered a bottle of "Chardonnay Grand Cru" for dinner. There really is no such thing, and I suspect that the author knows this. What his wife really ordered was a bottle of white wine from the Burgundy region in France from a Grand Cru vineyard, mostly likely from the Cote de Beaune district. Grand Cru is the highest mark of quality given to Burgundian wines. (Other French wines, some Bordeaux's even, have "Grand Cru" on their label, but it doesn't really mean anything.) If you're drinking white wine, and you're told it's from Burgundy, 99.9% of the time - and especially if you're in a restaurant - you're drinking Chardonnay. If you were drinking red Burgundy, you're drinking Pinot Noir. I could get more technical. For example, Aligote is often considered the "second white grape" of Burgundy, so it's possible that you could be served a white wine from Burgundy from the Aligote grape instead of Chardonnay, but if that were the case the bottle would say something like "Bourgone Aligote". Pinot Blanc is also grown in Burgundy, but again - Chardonnay is the main grape.
Here's my point (and I have one) - anyone reading this review was probably put off or bored with the above details. Unless you're an oenophile like me, you probably skimmed that paragraph. I found myself skimming some of the more technical paragraphs in this book, and if I'm skimming in a 160 page book, then those parts, more likely than not, aren't necessary.
As I said, the premise is fascinating and the solution both frightening and - currently - unbearably possible. But it needs more work. The solution as to why this boy died (and others like him around the country) was arrived at too quickly, after pages and pages of material (surgeries, etc.) that didn't contribute much to the story. We should have been slowly led to that conclusion, instead of having it plop down on front of us.
I noticed that another reviewer commented specifically on some issues with editing. I hope the author takes that, and what I've written, as constructive criticism, for I'm sure that is the intent of both reviews.
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