Rating: 
Summary: Good airplane read
Review: This is one of those books you will not put down when the airplane lands and everyone else is waiting to get off! You may have read a few of these essays in The New Yorker, but it is still worth buying the book. Gawande is great at using cookbook methods to build suspense, but who cares?! It is a great airplane read when you are too tired to handle anything else. (Avoid it if friends or family are in the middle of complicated medical treatment-- raises too much doubt about the exactness of the medicine!)
Anyway, the author, almost a surgeon, suprisingly has humility and candor and is not so pedantic that you throw the book down in disgust! He digresses quite a bit to examine the statistics behind the physician decision-making process, but does so in a way to not put a reader to sleep.
It confirms your worse suspicions about medicine (its a crap-shoot), but gives you some hope about the humanity of the upcoming generation in medicine.
Makes you feel like a sloth however. Somewhere in the middle of surgical training and raising three, count 'em THREE (kinda sickly) kids, this guy Gawande cranks out a well-researched, nicely-constructed novel!
Rating: 
Summary: Neurosurgery patient...
Review: As a frequent neurosurgery patient, it helped me to read this book- after reading it I was no longer impatient with my doctors (I am a rare case)- sometimes it would get frustrating, and this book made me realize that surgeons are not Gods- they all make mistakes- all aspects of medicine are a lot more complicated than an ordinary person would believe. Anyway, if there are other patients out there I would like to recommend this book to them.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Read
Review: I found this book completely by accident by just browsing through Bargain Books on Amazon--and what a delight! This is most definitely one of the best books I've ever read. Gawande's way of placing the reader at ease--even when he's describing serious mistakes and disturbing statistics about medical errors--gives you some insight as to his real-life bedside manner. Very readable, told in short vignettes about various patient cases, yet not "watered down" for the non-medical expert, this book was a joy to read. If you are interested in forensic science, medicine, operations, or case studies of unique patient situations, this book will interest you strongly. I plan to seek out other books/articles by this author to read.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended for Medical Students
Review: I am a second-year medical student, and was fortunate to be able to read "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science", by Atul Gawande, for a class in medical school. Not only is the book enjoyable and engaging, it also provides a valuable perspective on the issues and "complications" facing medical students, residents, and doctors in the field of surgery and medicine in general. Misperceptions and myths are dispelled about the training, philosophy, and culture of medicine, and several important truths, particularly useful to medical students and those considering medicine as a career, are revealed. Gawande highlights the unique realities of fallibility, mystery, and uncertainty in medicine, and in so doing creates a respect for the complexity and privilege of a life and career in this field.
Rating:
Summary: Unassuming
Review: In my opinion the primary reason behind the book's popularity lies in Gawande's unassuming attitude. What differentiates Gawande's writings from writings of other doctors and researchers in medicine is the fact that Gawande poses questions while others try to provide answers. This is not to say that proposing answers -- to the medical problems faced -- is bad in any sense. What I wish to highlight is the fact that, when it comes to relating to readers, recording the difficulties and agonies doctors confront (as human beings) offers arguably the best way to build rapport. Gawande's writing does just that. In the various essays of the book you will find the mind of a sympathetic (in many surgery cases Gawande seems to make follow up visits to the patient's homes) surgeon, weighing all possible options before treatment, and conducting post-analysis for each and every case. His descriptions of surgeries are factual, hence graphical. This, together with his ever-questioning, ever-probing mind, make the passages almost read like a mystery, in the sense that readers are held in suspense in anticipation of a resolution. I enjoyed the essays under part II (the book consists of three parts: fallibility, mystery, and uncertainty) the most, as this part was the most intellectually rewarding. There the author questions the understanding of symptoms as fundamental as pain to symptoms as obscure as nausea and blushing. As elusive as the source of such symptoms are, the questions the author poses take on philosophical form. Instead of coming up with definite, authoritative answers, the author enumerates different perspectives, offers his opinions, and invites readers to think along.
Rating:
Summary: Complications- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
Review: What a literary treat. Atul Gawande, an eighth-year surgical resident and now author, discusses the experiences that young in-training physicians as well as the inquisitive patient and public should be aware of, discuss, be enlightened by or ponder. Within this book is a collection of accounts including medical surgical errors, the inevitable experience of the training physician learning the heirarchy that exists in the medical field, how medical and surgical procedures are implemented and practiced with the hope of bettering patient care, as well as the reality that some medical issues and patient ailments, as real as they are for the patient, may not be explained or defined by medical science....and our societal need to reason and have an explanation for everything. I am a medical student myself, and appreciate the author's attempt to approach educating others through his experiences about the fallible nature of physicians as humans, his non-exploitative way of educating others as to what happens in the medical setting, and his subtle approach to inspire physicians to reflect on how they practice, why they practice and what being a patient really means for those they treat. It is also a great read for those not in the medical field, as an insightful look as medicine and perhaps also as a way to let the reader as a patient take a more active role in their relationship with the physicians they encounter.
Rating:
Summary: Good Medicine
Review: I highly recommend this book for those who entrust their lives to their doctors. This book gives you a good view behind the curtain of just how speculative medicine is and how fallible doctors are. It's made up of short pieces, previously published in magazines such as The New Yorker, which detail incidents and thoughts from the life of a resident who skillfully recorded medical cases and his involvement in them over the years. At first, I had a hard time just reading about medical procedures
involving needles piercing heart walls and lungs being collapsed. But after the initial shock, I found the anecdotes and cases to be fascinating and instructive. I came away with a new appreciation of our fallibility and mortality and a stronger sense that we, as patients, need to take charge of ourselves and see to it that we get the best care out there from the most experienced hands. Perhaps this was not the author's intention in writing this work, but I thank him for opening my eyes to the need for constant vigilance.
I give this book an A+.
Rating:
Summary: PERFECT
Review: I am a pre-med student and reading this book helped me understand a lot of things about medicine and surgery. The author passed his points to the reader through every single page. i found this book really helpful and i do recommend it to anybody who likes medicine.
Rating:
Summary: Strongly recommended
Review: I have read Dr. Gawande's articles in the New Yorker for several years, and was excited to get my hands on this book, which has lived up to my expectations. Subject matter aside, he is an exceptional writer. Dr. Gawande draws the reader into the 'behind the scenes' of medicine without being the least bit salacious or exploitative. He, more than most other medical writers, is able to convey the feeling of 'being the doctor' and how fascinating and agonizing this can sometimes be. Dr. Gawande's book is interesting from a purely medical standpoint (there's nothing doctors enjoy more than discussing cases that don't fit the textbooks), and also because it spurs you to recognize how very human (i.e., fallible) doctors are, without being didactic about it. I come to this book as a medical 'insider' - I am a resident physician. I have read a great many books about the medical profession, and this book has become one of my favorites. From a professional standpoint, I found this book to be quite instructive in reminding me that being an outstanding physician has a lot to do with recognizing, accepting, and negotiating my own imperfections and continually looking for ways to minimize the impact of my innate fallibility in the care of my patients. A doctor who thinks him/herself infallible is self-deluded and, frankly, dangerous. I have given copies of this book to several medical students with whom I have worked in hopes of encouraging them to develop an approach to medical care that encompasses and compensates for their own necessarily fallible human nature. I would recommend it to anyone interested in medicine and good writing.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting reading for non-medics as well...
Review: I am a non-medical person. But I am extremely sensitive on health issues. So I like to do research and readings on health subjects that have affected my own health. I became interested in Gawande's book when I saw it in the hands of a medical student reading it on the subway. At first, I thought that the book is not readable by non-medical people. Yet, after I have read it, I have seen that I did a good job buying it. The book is perfectly readable. With very nice examples and a charming language, it shows that doctors are also exposed to human weaknesses, that patients should not ask for miracles from medical science but can well ask for them from God, not to ensure healing, but because hoping is the first and foremost condition to coping with plenty of uncontrolled variables. On the medical side, the book is full of lessons for doctors to take; how vital it is to be abreast of medical research, to have a balanced life, to care and respect for patients. I know many doctors who themselves need physical or psychiatric care but neglect it just as they do not take their patients' problems seriously enough. Dr. Gawande displays not only striking examples of such doctors but also encouraging ways for them to be better doctors. Overall, I can say that this book is fun and useful to read.
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