On the shelf

Complications
By Atul Gawande
Penguin, Rs 250

It has been done before 8212; a doctor of Indian origin practicing in an American hospital and writing about his experiences in the medical profession Remember Abraham Verghese8217;s acclaimed My Own Country. Through anecdotes, Gawande, a resident in surgery in Boston, looks at larger dilemmas that a doctor confronts while coming to terms with the limitations of both science and human skill.

He weaves his narrative around case studies 8212; a woman with chronic nausea that does not go away or another with an incapacitating back pain that has no physical explanation 8212; but goes beyond to bring the discipline of medicine itself under scrutiny. And this is where the book works 8212; when Gawande addresses the fact that medicine is a fundamentally human endeavour. He writes, most of the times when we fall sick we are not seeking the help of medicine, but of a doctor, a person, having a good or a bad day.