The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine

by Sherwin B. Nuland

Book Overview

Long-time physician Sherwin B. Nuland presents a provocative and stimulating collection of stories illustrating the vagaries of medical practice over the years. Among the fascinating and probing... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400064783
• ISBN13: 9781400064786
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 198 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Collections of Compassionate Insights from the White Coats

Physician/author Sherwin Nuland writes with uncommon insight and compassion in this, his latest book. The book is actually a compilation of stand-alone essays and musings that apparently originally appeared in The American Scholar magazine. While the chapters stand alone as jewels in a collection, they reinforce the theme that medicine - for all its apparent scientific exactitude - remains an "uncertain art." We invest doctors and medicine with much more power than they have, perhaps projecting our own hopes and fears. Nuland is a skilled writer, and his closing chapter on getting to know a heart transplant candidate may bring a tear to your eye. "An Uncertain Art" is a certain gem as a collection of insights on medicine from the vantage point of a seasoned surgeon. .

A NEW ETHICAL CONSIDERATION

THE UNCERTAIN ART THOUGHTS ON A LIFE IN MEDICINE By Sherwood B. Nuland M.D. ("And sign here if you'd like to see his organs become more involved in community theatre." Danny Shanaban, Cartoon Caption in THE NEW YORKER, July 21,2008.) In his latest collection of medical essays, THE UNCERTAIN ART, Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, tells us about a new perhaps controversial and decidedly complex medical development: human heart transplantation. This essay is presented towards the book's ending, though to me and possibly to most readers, this is the books most important section. Heart transplantation presents mammoth emotional, economic, and ethical aspects to patient care. It is an entity never before confronted, which comes with the inevitable condition that someone must die before any patient can benefit. Dr. Nuland presents the subject with his usual fluidity and clarity. Heart transplantation and its possible ramifications is important to physicians, councelors, and especially to the ones who may need it the most; potential patient candidates. In a manner, Dr. Nuland's book is "the voice in the wilderness," maybe alerting the world of his new treatment. However, the public in general has to become more conversant and involved in heart transplantation. This is a process of human-to-human bonding and to many it will mean "going too far," while to others it is the only "miraculous ray of hope." I strongly recommend reading it.

More, please

I enjoyed this book, as I do all of Nuland's offerings, but it wasn't riveting - it was more like meandering through a park. Most of these pieces were previously published in periodicals, and like many compilations, the necessary brevity normally demanded by magazine editors left me, in several cases, wishing for more fleshing out of the various subjects introduced. I especially missed that which Nuland has done so well in his previous books - brought the subject matter literally to life based on specific stories of his patients. This was done only in the final chapter, and not coincidentally, this chapter was by far the most interesting, compassionate, and illustrative of his central thesis. Nevertheless, considering the nonsense that passes for literature today, well worth having and reading more than once.

Medicine in historical perspective by a knowledgeable and compassionate intellectual and practicing

Dr. Nuland writes engagingly, perceptively, compassionately, historically, and synthetically about the uncertain art of medicine. No one physician has the capacity or lifespan to learn fully the art of medicine, as Hippocrates and his students recognized two and a half millennia ago (5th & 4th century B.C.E.). Dr. Nuland explores the implications of that first part of the first aphorism of the Hippocratic Corpus of writings. I cannot imagine that any physician, surgeon, biomedical researcher, and medical student would not consider reading this personal-professional-instructional account a memorable and personally influencial experience.