Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and one of the world's leading researchers in cancer and AIDS, Dr. Groopman breaks down the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. He explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can -- with our help -- avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly Perri Klass
This passionate honesty gives the book an immediacy and an eloquence that will resonate with anyone interested in medicine, science or the cruel beauties of those human endeavors which engage mortal stakes.
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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
A highly pleasurable must-read. [15 Jan 2007, p.62]
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Outstanding
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The New York Times Book Review Michael Crichton
It is this direct and honest voice that drives the narratives of this remarkable book. Here is Groopman at the peak of his form, as a physician and as a writer. Readers will relish the result.
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Outstanding
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Vincent Lam
The great beauty of this book is in Groopman's elegant discourse on the journey of medical thinking.
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Favorable
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Wall Street Journal Thomas Hager
In this book he pulls off the admirable hat trick of demystifying medicine, giving patients the tools they need to improve their dealings with healthcare professionals, and challenging readers to examine their own assumptions about the medical world.
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Favorable
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Washington Post David Brown
[Groopman's] task is to offer practical advice to both patients and physicians. He succeeds at both. Groopman catalogues the many species of clinical errors, a whole taxonomy of misperceptions and wrong conclusions illustrated with real examples offered as representative types. All are fascinating, a few are chilling.
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Favorable
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The New York Times William Grimes
A series of illuminating essays that explore the rational and irrational factors that influence medical decision-making. By turns inspiring and dismaying.
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times David Kessler
Groopman's writing style grabs the reader's attention by making his characters come alive on the page — so much so, in fact, that the reader truly cares about the medical dilemmas they are facing. He gives us more information about the patients than most books of this genre, so that we can follow the doctors' thinking and understand how their decisions are made.
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Favorable
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Booklist Ray Olson
A book to restore faith in an often-resented profession. [1 Jan 2007, p.21]
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Favorable
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Entertainment Weekly Gilbert Cruz
The flip side of Groopman's steadfast devotion to his topic, of course, is that he risks wearing down his reader with too many examples of how doctors can go wrong. It's enough to make the most carefree readers fear for their lives.
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Favorable
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Boston Globe Howard Markel
The examples of erroneous assumptions and logical lapses described need to be drilled into the head of every practicing physician. What the book does not fully address, and I think too many medical consumers refuse to contemplate, is the unsettling acceptance that mistakes are inimical to the practice of medicine.
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Unfavorable
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Chicago Sun-Times Jim Ritter
Unfortunately, the book reads less like his New Yorker essays and more like a succession of the TV series "House," in which the series star is a cranky medical genius who always pushes the envelope in employing risky but life-saving techniques on his patients with bizarre symptoms.
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