Saturday, February 17, 2007

Another Non Fiction Reading

I just recalled the other non-fiction title I wanted to check out. Pauline W. Chen's Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality. It's about a surgeon's questioning of the medical profession and how it seems so inadequate in dealing with death. A human perspective into a profession meant to heal, but sometimes losing its way.

I think sometimes we forget doctors are human too, and medicial science does not have all the answer — especially when we are dealing with terminal illnesses and we look to them for the solution — then, realising they are not god.

This is of course part of my own recent experience, where we were frustrated by the number of tests the doctors were running on my grandmother and nothing seems to help her, because she is dying.

Again, since it's in hardcover, I'm checking out the library first. So it's definitely not going to be a selection for the Non-Fiction Five Challenge.

If I do sign-up.

1 comment:

Rebecca H. said...

I like writing about medicine -- there's been a series of such articles in the New Yorker recently that are about training and doctors making errors. I forget the author's name though.