• The Patient Will See You Now

  • The Future of Medicine Is in Your Hands
  • By: Eric Topol MD
  • Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
  • Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (589 ratings)

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The Patient Will See You Now  By  cover art

The Patient Will See You Now

By: Eric Topol MD
Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
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Publisher's summary

In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol, one of the nation's top physicians, examines what he calls medicine's "Gutenberg moment". Much as the printing press liberated knowledge from the control of an elite class, new technology is poised to democratize medicine. In this new era, patients will control their data and be emancipated from a paternalistic medical regime in which "the doctor knows best."

Mobile phones, apps, and attachments will literally put the lab and the ICU in our pockets. Computers will replace physicians for many diagnostic tasks, and enormous data sets will give us new means to attack conditions that have long been incurable. In spite of these benefits, the path forward will be complicated; some in the medical establishment will resist these changes, and digitized medicine will raise serious issues surrounding privacy. Nevertheless, the result - better, cheaper, and more humane health care for all - will be worth it.

©2015 Eric Topol (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Dr. Eric Topol is a pioneer of the medicine of the future and the future is now! Read this book and empower yourself for total well-being." ---Deepak Chopra

What listeners say about The Patient Will See You Now

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    3 out of 5 stars

Explains the author's view of the future of medici

Once you get past the paranoid view that so much in medicine is a conspiracy, the book does give a view of how technology can change health care. The author misses 2 key points that increase hospitalization costs: 1. US patients do not take personal responsability for their health -obesity, fast food, smoking, lack of exercise, etc 2. Hospitals have a gov't imposed mandate to care for anyone, regardless of ability to pay. This policy is a hidden tax on those who do pay or whose insurance pays.

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41 people found this helpful

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Socialist bent but brilliant none the less

Eric appears to be a socialist so you'll view the advances that we have the opportunity to embrace through that lens. But the information is spectacular and his vision of the future for medicine is exciting even if I see its implementation from a radically different libertarian perspective.

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24 people found this helpful

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I began as a sceptic but now I'm convinced

As a medical school hopeful I regard this as one of the most inspiring books I've ever read/listened to. I began as a sceptic but am now convinced that democratized medicine is inevitable and worthwhile.

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Bold, innovative, and foward thinking!

If you could sum up The Patient Will See You Now in three words, what would they be?

Extremely insightful book! Dr Topol does a great job of illustrating the potential future of patient/doctor relationships. He uses many concrete example of different projects and products that are already making this change happen.

Who was your favorite character and why?

NA

Have you listened to any of Eric Michael Summerer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

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Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

the whole book is very insightful

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the future is here

Terrific overview of how technology available today, coupled with a mindset shift in clinician thinking, can go a long way towards improving health care for all.

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Insightful and Visionary!

Eric Topol has done it again. This book is thoroughly researched and quite inspiring. The future of medicine described in great detail. A call to action

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Optimistic outlook on the future of medical care

Eric Topol presents a very optimistic vision of the application of new technologies, especially digital, to making each of us the person primarily responsible for our own healthcare; the physician's role will be reduced. He focuses on the concept that each of us will have personal ownership of our personal medical data. The keys according to Topol include wide use of smartphones with apps and special sensors to measure a wide variety of medically relevant conditions including blood tests, a huge and very secure cloud to store our data, and super computers to analyze population and individual gnome data. He covers a wide range of other topics including the reduces use of hospitals. His summary is a move from autocratic to democratic medicine (bottom up rather than top down medicine).

I am impressed by the scope and vision of the book, but am concerned about the role of government. In two cases he is critical of the FDA approval process, but overall he is, I believe incorrectly, in favor of more legislation and more government involvement in healthcare markets. Nevertheless, despite his inappropriate leaning toward socialization, the information and forward leaning view in the book make it worthy of a five star rating.

The narration is excellent.

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Textbook of future medicine

Would you listen to The Patient Will See You Now again? Why?

I will. Will use it as a textbook for my lecture.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Patient Will See You Now?

Great and balanced insights for both doctors and patients.

What about Eric Michael Summerer’s performance did you like?

Spotless.

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The Doctor is no Longer Needed. Really?

What disappointed you about The Patient Will See You Now?

As a practicing Family Practice Physician for over two decades, I have lived through our conversion from paper to digital charting, worked in both academic and HMO settings, and have experienced first-hand many of the topics Eric Topol addresses in "The Patient Will See You Now," and I would not recommend this book. Dr. Topol is like Tesla driver who is so trusting and enamored with his high tech toy that he doesn't realize his GPS has just driven him off a cliff. Sad, tragic even, as I know he is trying to usher in the new age of technology, but in so doing he has lost sight of the real people, both physicians and patients, who need to be able to use the tools he's suggesting without getting hurt. In this book, he implies that we will no longer need hospitals because people will be able to be managed at home with high-tech homes. Really? He promotes the 2005 five Rand study that was funded by the self-same tech companies who ended up profiting from it when the government used it to justify our conversion to EMR’s that have turned me into a data-entry clerk. If you're a tech junkie with a good head of smoke, you'll love Dr. Topol. If you’re a living breathing physician or patient, I would steer clear of the fantasy world he's trying to paint and use your hard earned cash to buy a different book. Try "The Digital Doctor" by Robert Wachter or "An American Sickness" by Elisabeth Rosenthal. These are hard-hitting books that are relevant and unbiased.

What do you think your next listen will be?

I would recommend either An American Sickness or The Digital Doctor instead of this book.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator did a fine job. The material he had to work with was questionable.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Patient Will See You Now?

Despite being well researched, this book is full of bias and completely unhinged from reality.

Any additional comments?

Dr. Topol implied in an interview with The Wall Street Journal March 2018 that the reason doctors resist technology is because we can't bill for it. Recent large-scale surveys have shown that physicians want time not money. We want to talk to our patients not review their data. We have devoted our lives to helping our patients, to serving our communities, and to make a difference and to suggest that the reason we don't want to play with Dr. Topol's cellphone toys is because we can't make a profit from it is a perfect example of the loftier-than-thou attitude you'll find throughout this book.

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Motives besides being a MD

Dr. Eric Topol had other motives besides being a MD when he was writing "The Patient Will See You Now." If it was up to Dr. Topol, he wouldn't see any of his patients in person at all. I wasn't too impress with his book. It felt like a scare tactic. If you have a phobia on your health, don't read it.

It you do a search on Eric Topol, the search result may surprise you. He is known for his digital medicine rather than his cardiology practice. His book is all about wireless and having your medical data with you wherever you are on your smart phone. The book reads like a tech blog than medicine. After half way through the book, you can tell that Dr. Topol has an invested interest for wireless medicine to succeed.

Like a pharmaceutical companies giving doctors kick backs in order to push their samples to patients, Topol is being bought out by wireless and tech. He credits all of them throughout the book. I'm not saying that the subject matter is bad, but the way that it is being presented to the reader is not neutral. Dr. Topol keeps pounding the same thing over and over, where I thought that I was reading something on Engadget. Too much tech and not enough doctor and patient.

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