Complications, Atul Gawande
Complications, Atul Gawande
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Complications
A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Author: Atul Gawande

Narrator: Robert Petkoff

Unabridged: 9 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/21/2020

Categories: Nonfiction, Medical, Surgery


Synopsis

**A new unabridged recording**

A brilliant and courageous doctor reveals, in gripping accounts of true cases, the power and limits of modern medicine.

Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is -- complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human.

Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high, yet decisions must be made. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad. He also shows us what happens when medicine comes up against the inexplicable: an architect with incapacitating back pain for which there is no physical cause; a young woman with nausea that won't go away; a television newscaster whose blushing is so severe that she cannot do her job. Gawande offers a richly detailed portrait of the people and the science, even as he tackles the paradoxes and imperfections inherent in caring for human lives.

At once tough-minded and humane, Complications is a new kind of medical writing, nuanced and lucid, unafraid to confront the conflicts and uncertainties that lie at the heart of modern medicine, yet always alive to the possibilities of wisdom in this extraordinary endeavor.

Complications was a 2002 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

About Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande is the author of several bestselling books: Complications, a finalist for the National Book Award; Better; The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. He is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, a MacArthur Fellowship, and two National Magazine Awards. In his work in public health, he is Founder and Chair of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. He is also chair of Haven, where he was CEO from 2018-2020. He and his wife have three children and live in Newton, Massachusetts.

About Robert Petkoff

Robert Petkoff has won multiple AudioFile Earphones awards for his acclaimed narrations. He was named Best Voice of Fiction & Classics for his reading of The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale. His other narration credits include Oath of Office by Michael Palmer, Gangster Squad by Paul Lieberman, and books by David Foster Wallace.Petkoff has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in theaters across America and Europe.  He has worked in television and film. His theater credits include Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in the Broadway production of Anything Goes, Perchik as part of the Tony-nomianted cast of Fiddler on the Roof, and Hubert Humphrey in the Tony award-winning play All the Way. He has also had numerous roles in television on shows such as Law and Order and Married with Children.


Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Evan on 2008-04-27 11:09:21

Audiobooks, especially nonfiction ones, don't get much better than this. Engaging, well written, well read, accessible to any reader, educational in the GOOD way -- this isn't pedantic nonsense, and left me very much looking-forward to Dr. Gawande's second next book.

Goodreads review by Patricia on March 11, 2012

A year or more ago, I mistakenly placed a review for Gawande's book Better under this title. I have fixed the mix up, and I have now read Complications. Gawande is pure pleasure to read. His writing is fluid and full of germane examples as he addresses big issues like error and incompetence as well a......more

Goodreads review by Chris on November 06, 2021

This was Gawande's first book (2002), who is most well-known for the excellent Being Mortal. The title may lead one to think this all about medical errors, but the subtitle provides a better insight into the contents. It was a National Book award finalist. Gawande writes with candor, thoughtfulness,......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on October 24, 2007

Complications is a book of anecdotes about a surgical resident’s experiences and impressions of the current health care environment. Gawande divides his stories into three sections: fallibility, mystery, and uncertainty. The fallibility section demonstrates that doctors can make mistakes. Some falli......more

Goodreads review by Cherisa on March 22, 2023

A look under the hood of the profession of surgeons from a thoughtful practitioner and sympathetic writer. At some point in our lives we intersect with the medical profession and perhaps surgeons. It’s good to have thought of some of the issues he covers, such as how training requires doctors to pra......more

Goodreads review by Libby on April 18, 2009

Although I am interested in the medical profession, motivation to learn more about it often elludes me. Gawande was able to keep my attention and present points that I could understand in spite of my limited medical knowledge. Admittedly, some of his information scared me. After reading some points a......more


Quotes

“None surpass Gawande in the ability to create a sense of immediacy, in his power to conjure the reality of the ward, the thrill of the moment-by-moment medical and surgical drama. Complications impresses for its truth and authenticity, virtues that it owes to its author being as much forceful writer as uncompromising chronicler.” —The New York Times Book Review

“No one writes about medicine as a human subject as well as Atul Gawande. His stories about becoming a surgeon are scary, funny, absorbing....Complications is a uniquely soulful book about the science of mending bodies.” —Adam Gopnik, author of Paris to the Moon

“Gawande is arguably the best nonfiction doctor-writer around....He's prescient and thoughtful...the heir to Lewis Thomas' humble, insightful and brilliantly crafted oeuvre.” —Salon.com


Awards

  • PEN Literary Award - Finalist
  • National Book Awards - Finalist
  • ALA Notable Books - Winner