I picked
this up at a book sale a while ago and hadn’t had a chance to read it until
now. This book piqued my interest at the
sale because it is written by a doctor. I
often have a tough time with authors who overextend themselves in their
writing. Who better to write a book
about medical procedures than a doctor?
The story is centered around third
year medical student Susan Wheeler. She
has just finished up with the formal learning, and today is her first day at
Boston Memorial Hospital. Her pretty
face makes her a fast favorite with her assigned mentor, Mark Bellows, and she
is quickly given additional responsibilities.
She is assigned to start an IV on a patient, who later lapses into a
coma as an unfortunate result of this routine procedure. Susan begins to notice a pattern of high
incidence of comas affecting patients of the hospital. She dives straight into this perceived problem,
much to the chagrin of Dr. Bellows, which makes many waves with the
faculty. Susan is convinced of an underlying
conspiracy, or a new medical condition. She
pursues this idea with reckless abandon, and steps on the toes of the faculty
by blaming them for the coma epidemic . She
is surprisingly rebellious, missing lectures and throwing herself head first
into the potential new discovery. Susan
begins to get push back from the faculty, and it seems like there is definitely
something going on at Boston Memorial. Soon
she begins to be paranoid that she is being followed, and that there is a large
conspiracy at work at the hospital. Susan relentlessly pursues the truth, as she finds that this may be more than she bargained for.
The suspense of the novel was tangible, and I thought the
pacing was appropriate. However, I found
it very hard to swallow how insubordinate Susan was in her pursuit of “the
truth” in regards to these mysterious comas.
The book starts on Susan’s first day, not long after she gets her first
hands on experience, she is bailing on lectures and rounds. For some reason she thinks this behavior is
admirable, and rebuffs anyone who tries to get her back on track. She lies, and obtains information on patients
under false pretenses. For someone who
badly wants to be a doctor, it’s hard to believe that anyone would see this as
anything less than inappropriate behavior.
This book was enjoyable, and I appreciated the sound medical content (as
far as I can tell). The ideas were
scientifically feasible, if not unlikely.
Overall it made for an entertaining and smart read. I would recommend this book, but stay away
from the TV series/movie they made last year.
I watched the first half of it on Netflix and it’s pretty terrible.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Bunsen Burners
Up Next: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
