Complications by Atul Gawande

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

4/5. Very belated review – I was still several weeks from giving birth when I finished this -- and thus somewhat shallow. But, completeness!

Excellent collection of essays from a surgeon. Standouts for me were from his section on doctor fallibility. He has a particular piece that speaks candidly about physician learning curves and the necessity of learning new techniques sometimes at the expense of patients. You don't see people admitting that often, but it obviously must be the case. The whole section on fallibility is great. I was baffled to discover that my girlfriend wife (…whoa….) trusts doctors as, like, a baseline state of being. I assumed cancer treatment would cure that, but nope! It's amazing. She goes to see someone and she just assumes they are well-trained, up-to-date, engaged that day, etc. To be fair, her cancer was initially suspected by a nurse practitioner who was seriously on the ball, and I have had my share of amazing doctors myself. But as a general rule, I go in assuming 85% of them are overworked, uninterested, or simply incompetent. I mean, in my experience, 85% of the people in most professions fall into one of those categories, and to assume doctors don't is an obvious fallacy. So it's great that this collection dug into that.

But the real highlight for me is his essay on autonomy, particularly speaking to it as an ethic of care, not the ethic of care. It's important, challenging material I wish I'd read back when I was writing about medical ethics in law school.

Recommended.