Complications

A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

By: Atul Gawande

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

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

©2003 Atul Gawande (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“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)

Excellent physician and author

Everything rings true in this book. All physicians could learn from reading it. I’m saying this as a physician. Only problem is the occasional mispronunciation of medical words by the reader, more amusing than bothersome.

Love Dr. Gawande

The book is essential Gawande. I love all his books. My issue is with the narration. The mispronunciations of medical was terrible. It makes it difficult to listen.

Extremely insightful into surgeon challenges

Honest, transparent and insightful. Is extremely interesting understanding the challenges surgeons face, the limits of current science and the outstanding achievements surgery achieve. Awesome

Helps you appreciate doctors

Doctors are people too! That was the big lesson from this book.
They make mistakes just like everyone else does. The good ones (not quacks or those with inflated egos) carry a lot of guilt when things go wrong. Yet we forget all this when a medical procedure is botched or when we lose a loved one at the operating table.
Thanks for this book Dr Gawande. I'll listen to it again in future!

interesting listen

I enjoyed this book. I've listened to other books by this author and think he's just fantastic. my only quibble with this book, and it is small, is that sometimes the story seems to be included just because it's interesting. I think the title complications fits the stories, but not all of the stories flow well from one to another.

A good casual read, while also being intellectually stimulating.

Gawande has a great writing style, and a way of breaking down complex cases into common parlance that make this book intellectually stimulating, without being overwhelmed by the complexity of the sheer ocean of knowledge he has to share. “Complications” explores some of his most interesting and unusual cases he has seen as a general surgeon, and lightly explores some shortcomings of the US medical situation - both for patients and doctors. Everything was presented in a way that piqued my curiosity and kept me wanting to read the next chapter.
The audio performance was fine, but there were a good many mispronunciations, and a few audio artifacts. Otherwise the voice reading was clear, and the speed consistent.

Read this!

Putting stories to patient care and complications and then pulling in the data - and the art in treating them - is an excellent way to make the take home information stick. I love it! Thank you for sharing this work.

Good Read/Listen

Dr. Gawande takes us inside the Emergency Room, the Operating Room, and occasionally, inside his head for a closeup look at the intricacies and uncertainties of modern medicine. He is frank about his stumbles and modest about his insight in making the right call in murky cases. Probably the best book of its genre that I have read to date.

Petkoff's narration is good and he handles most medical terms correctly, apart from some amusing errors, such as "duo dend' um" for duodenum and emphasis on the wrong syllable in acrylate. There are others, but we won't be picky.

Great book! Captivating

Such a great and unique perspective from the doctors point of view. Would recommend for sure!

Humble and critical insight into a surgeon’s mind

I really appreciate how accessible Gawande’s books are. He writes with such humility, empathy, and clarity around something so opaque to those of us on the receiving end of care. His other book, “Being Mortal” was written almost 2 decades later and it’s even better. As someone interested in end of life care and the body more generally, his work and decision-making is fascinating to learn about.