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A review by bites_of_books
Five Patients by Michael Crichton
4.0
It's widely known that Michael Crichton started off as a medical doctor and then transitioned into writing. In Five Patients we get his perspective on the medical field, specifically patient care and the way hospitals are run.
This book was first written in 1970 when Crichton was 28, which is important since we take a look at how medicine was done at that time, what the worries of the future were in regards to the evolution of patient care and how hospitals would run decades later. His insights really show how far ahead he can see with the way that medicine actually evolved, and those things he missed and which exist now.
We get the stories of five patients, each detailing the medicine behind their cases and also explaining the ways that the physician, surgeon, or administrator is viewing this patient. Take for example the first patient, we get to see what happens when a man is admitted into the emergency ward, how the nurses and doctors accommodate for his care, how all the other patients are displaced or accommodated, and all the social and philosophical roots and consequences of these decisions.
At this time there's not much use of computers in the care of patients or the training of doctors. Crichton at one point imagines when virtual reality will aid doctors in the practice of surgeries, at another one where patients will not be touched by a human hand but will be cared for by machines, computers, and robots. It's interesting to see how some things have evolved and others have stayed the same.
He wonders about surgeries, how sometimes surgeons would do surgeries simply to practice and not for the patient (appendectomies for example), and how he sees that at that point in time the physician's job is to make surgeries the last resort. He sees "personalized medicine" as something of the future that is highly attainable (it is!).
It amazes me how he's able to see exactly where some things will get in the future, while how others will likely stay the same.
Also, there's a fun paragraph where he's describing a computer monitor where a patient can simply "touch the screen at the appropriate place" to mark their symptoms; he's describing a touch screen, which would be developed a few years later.
Fans of Michael Crichton's fiction novels might find this book not very exciting, but to me, it was incredibly interesting since I got to see the way hospitals evolved and how patient care has changed since then. As someone who works in the field of precision medicine (the new name for personalized medicine) I find it inspiring and motivating.
This book was first written in 1970 when Crichton was 28, which is important since we take a look at how medicine was done at that time, what the worries of the future were in regards to the evolution of patient care and how hospitals would run decades later. His insights really show how far ahead he can see with the way that medicine actually evolved, and those things he missed and which exist now.
We get the stories of five patients, each detailing the medicine behind their cases and also explaining the ways that the physician, surgeon, or administrator is viewing this patient. Take for example the first patient, we get to see what happens when a man is admitted into the emergency ward, how the nurses and doctors accommodate for his care, how all the other patients are displaced or accommodated, and all the social and philosophical roots and consequences of these decisions.
At this time there's not much use of computers in the care of patients or the training of doctors. Crichton at one point imagines when virtual reality will aid doctors in the practice of surgeries, at another one where patients will not be touched by a human hand but will be cared for by machines, computers, and robots. It's interesting to see how some things have evolved and others have stayed the same.
He wonders about surgeries, how sometimes surgeons would do surgeries simply to practice and not for the patient (appendectomies for example), and how he sees that at that point in time the physician's job is to make surgeries the last resort. He sees "personalized medicine" as something of the future that is highly attainable (it is!).
It amazes me how he's able to see exactly where some things will get in the future, while how others will likely stay the same.
Also, there's a fun paragraph where he's describing a computer monitor where a patient can simply "touch the screen at the appropriate place" to mark their symptoms; he's describing a touch screen, which would be developed a few years later.
Fans of Michael Crichton's fiction novels might find this book not very exciting, but to me, it was incredibly interesting since I got to see the way hospitals evolved and how patient care has changed since then. As someone who works in the field of precision medicine (the new name for personalized medicine) I find it inspiring and motivating.