Five Patients
by Michael Crichton | Mystery & Thrillers | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0345354648 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0345354648 Global Overview for this book
Registered by BigrTex of Colorado Springs, Colorado USA on 5/27/2005
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
From Amazon.com:
Michael Crichton, creator of many a blockbuster, began his writing career while still a student at Harvard Medical School. Though he never practiced medicine, the education was enough to put a gloss of verisimilitude on works like The Andromeda Strain and the long-running television hit ER. Five Patients is ER in real life--circa 1969, when Crichton graduated from medical school. Five different patients are examined at Massachusetts General Hospital; each patient's story illustrates some larger aspect of the hospital system. Thus, Ralph Orlando's death from cardiac arrest engenders a brief history of the modern hospital and emergency ward. John O'Connor, who has an unexplained high fever and infection, spends a month in the hospital, leading to a discourse on the cost of medical care (perhaps the most eye-opening chapter of the book--or the most unintentionally funny one from a 1999 perspective). The saga of Peter Luchesi, a worker whose hand is nearly severed in an industrial accident, leads to a discussion of 20th-century surgical advances. Sylvia Thompson, a traveler with chest pains who is seen by a doctor via closed-circuit TV at an airport, benefits from new (at the time) diagnostic and therapeutic technologies that have altered irrevocably the doctor's role. Finally, the case of Edith Murphy, diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus, serves quite literally to educate the medical students and interns who take on much of her care, as the hospital staff hierarchy is dissected and explained. Crichton's style here tends to the sober and bureaucratic--reading it is much more like brain surgery than hanging out in the staff room with George Clooney and Noah Wyle--but for the industrious it's a fascinating glimpse of pre-HMO medicine. --Barrie Trinkle
Purchased yesterday at Black Bart's Bookstore's "Going out of Business" sale.
Actual cover is older than one shown
Journal Entry 2 by BigrTex at Howard Johnson's - Airport in Newark, New Jersey USA on Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Released 19 yrs ago (8/31/2005 UTC) at Howard Johnson's - Airport in Newark, New Jersey USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
*The symbol is a caduceus, or magic wand of the Greek god Hermes (Roman Mercury); instead of the The Staff of Asclepius, the "correct" and traditional symbol of medicine. [For more information]
| In the second floor elevator lobby. |  |
| Each week an item is posted on the Never Judge a Book by its Cover Challenge thread in the forums. Everyone who participates tries to find a book with that item on its cover to release that week. This week's item is something gold like the symbol* on the actual cover of this book. | |
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*The symbol is a caduceus, or magic wand of the Greek god Hermes (Roman Mercury); instead of the The Staff of Asclepius, the "correct" and traditional symbol of medicine. [For more information]
When I went to check out this morning, the book was no longer where I left it. Something made me look in the trash compartment of the maid's cart nearby and I found this book sitting atop some other dry trash. I bailed it out and tried to find somewhere else to release it. I carried it back to Austin before re-releasing it.
Journal Entry 4 by BigrTex at Mangia Pizza At Burnet And Duval in Austin, Texas USA on Thursday, September 1, 2005
Released 19 yrs ago (9/1/2005 UTC) at Mangia Pizza At Burnet And Duval in Austin, Texas USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
I released this at the newest Mangia Pizza location (Gracy Farms) at lunch today on one of the chairs in the waiting area. It was still there when I left. I have my fingers crossed that it doesn't end up back in a trash can.
If you found it, I hope you enjoy it!
I released this at the newest Mangia Pizza location (Gracy Farms) at lunch today on one of the chairs in the waiting area. It was still there when I left. I have my fingers crossed that it doesn't end up back in a trash can.
If you found it, I hope you enjoy it!
