Improper Science By Atul Gawande Chapter Summary

I. Summary:

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Improper Science is a combination of stories, experiences and research compiled into one book. In this book, the Author: Atul Gawande, allows readers an inside view on problems, cases and secrets that surgeons might encounter in the medical field (Page 47, Paragraph 2) There are many perplexing and interest accounts and statistics within this best seller; there are stories of surgical mishaps, superstitions, and mysteries that gain the reader’s attention and helps keep them engaged.

Surgical mishaps surprisingly happen more often than one would expect. In one surgical story, a surgeon accidentally sewed up a patient without removing one of his large metal instruments. Since it was in her abdomen,

As an orthopedic surgeon Goodman had worked with a lot of bones over the years. Once he procrastinated draining the infection from a woman’s knee because he was tired. This destroyed the joint in her knee. She later had to visit a different orthopedist who had to fuse her knee solid so she would stop feeling the pain of her bones rubbing together (Page 90, Paragraph 2). Gawande notes that every physician is capable of “dumb, cavalier decisions like Goodman’s.” What makes a good doctor go bad is how often he repeatedly makes the same mistakes. In two cases Goodman put the wrong size screw in his patients. In another he used pins to try and fix a hip that ultimately needed replacing. All of these patients complained of pain however Goodman insisted he did nothing wrong (Page 90, Paragraph 5). This neglect became a problem and lead to the suspension of his operating privileges (Page 98, Paragraph 1). Gawande reveals the frightening but honest data explaining that “burnouts” can be quite common in the medical field. Another story Gawande tells is a personal experience of his on a Friday the thirteenth. He explains how surgeons are committed to the rational and it would be odd for any physician to be afraid of working on the night of Friday the thirteenth or a full moon. Incidentally it is common for a doctor to avoid working on