The Best American Medical Writing 2009

Book Overview

In one of the essays in The Best American Medical Writing 2009, a doctor declares that medicine is "knowledge, judgment, experience, and luck." The stories collected here explore each of those facets... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1607144646
• ISBN13: 9781607144649
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing
• Length: 318 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Beautifully written essays on important issues

This is the inaugural edition of the Best American Medical Writing. I sincerely hope that the series will continue. The introduction by editor Pauline Chen (herself a wonderful writer) was, all by itself, worth the price of admission. Here, as she describes the affinity between the cadences of music and writing, she shows herself to be a most excellent and sensitive candidate to have edited this first collection. The essays themselves range broadly in tone, topic matter and texture, as they are written by clinicians, journalists, and patients. Chen, being a physician, seems to have wanted to make sure that this collection would not be dominated by writings by doctors, and made sure that the perspectives of patients and their caregivers had ample representation. All of the essays are quite fine in their different ways, and worth reading. The only request that I would make is to append a list of the 100 or so other pieces that were assembled for consideration by the main editor, but which failed to make it into the collection. Some of the other "best of . . ." collections include a list like this and I have found that many of these "also-ran's" made fine reading. Was a bit surprised to see that Atul Gawande was not represented in this collection but trust that I can look forward to seeing something of his next year.

Great Collection of Essays

This is a well-rounded collection of essays related to the medical field. Read Tom McGrath's story "My Daughter's $29,000 Appendectomy" to get an idea of how medical costs come about, read Jason Zengerle's piece "Going Under" to find out about drug use among Anesthesiologists, read Jessica Sacks' piece on the unintended consequences of the pervasive use of Antibiotics. All stories provide fascinating reading and insight into a field most of us try to have as little contact as possible with. I was unable to put this book down.