Since my wife and I both read this book, and since she is a nurse, she wrote this and allowed me to help:
The Massachusetts-born novelist Noah Gordon has not been heard from in about a decade, but to expect otherwise would be selfish, he is pushing 90 years of age.
A musical version of his 1986 novel, "The Physician" is announced for 2016. That is probably not good news. Gordon's well-researched multi-themed novel, set in the middle-ages, is about the progress of orphan Rob Cole from traveling sideshow juggler and barber's assistant to highly trained surgeon. It is an epic and multi-themed continent-spanning pageant. A musical treatment can only be a trivialization. And "The Physician" is only the first of three novels in the "Cole Trilogy", the others tell of Cole descendants: one set in the civil war, followed by one with a reproductive-rights theme. Gordon writes with understanding, and he seldom strikes the false notes found in fiction about medicine.
"The Death Committee" lacks the depth that Gordon will give seventeen yeas later to the Cole novels, but it is like opening a time capsule and finding a mid-1960's city hospital and its inhabitants. It enters the imagination as from a grainy black and white TV screen. We see the good, the bad and the ugly...all are still with us, but in different forms.
Since the book came out in the 1960's it is self-consciously inclusive. The primary characters are male physicians (Hispanic, African-American, Jewish and Waspy). Their flaws and virtues are fairly well-drawn, and these characters drive the novel, especially when confronting ethical issues.
As for the women: nurses are either old and flinty (with deeply-hidden soft hearts), or young, nervous and fumbling. There are also some "girl" doctors - but we see little of them.
At the fictional "Suffolk General Hospital" in Boston, patient outcomes, not amenities, seem to be the key determinant in patient satisfaction. Medicine here is much more about practice, and less about theory.
The novel is both a dated historical curiosity and an interesting entertainment. Some hospital people will read this to see what we narrowly escaped, others will read it to remember what they survived - and perhaps to mourn values that have been lost. For others, it will be a vivid view of remote bad old days.
Más que hablar sobre las causas de la muerte de un paciente, ya sea por errores médicos o por causa de la historia natural de la enfermedad, habla sobre el impacto de las pérdidas, no solo de la muerte, que tiene sobre un grupo de médicos, cada uno con su historia cotidiana fuera del hospital
La ética, la medicina moderna, el universo de los egos y el error antes que la compasión. Una excelente lección para profesionales de la salud en medio de la narrativa impecable de Gordon
Un des premiers romans écrits par l'auteur, en 1969. Je suis un peu déçu, l'histoire est trop lisse, sans vraiment "justifier" le titre du livre. Les États Unis des années 60, avec les problèmes raciales qui sont abordés. Un peu trop de jargon médical, j'aimerai bien comprendre de quoi on parle quand je lis un roman. Et un fin "politiquement correcte" : le Noir avec les noirs, le Blanc qui reussi et le Cubain qui est abandonné par sa femme américaine et qui s'en va à la guerre. Point positif: j'aime beaucoup la façon donc l'auteur a structuré l'histoire: chacun des personnages est bien décrit, et on vit l'histoire avec leurs yeux.
Nunca había leído nada de Noah Gordon y la verdad es que me ha sorprendido muy a favor.
Ya desde el primer momento me sentía que estaba leyendo sobre un capítulo de Anatomía de Grey y eso me ha encantado. Hay muchas situaciones que te permiten ver cómo es la visión dentro del hospital por lo que resulta bastante interesante y, además, está escrito de una forma que se hace muy ameno. Lo único es que me hubiese encantado entender más cosas del lenguaje técnico en relación a la medicina para cuando se comenta el caso de algún paciente.
Me parece curioso que cada capítulo se base en un interno ya que cada uno tiene sus peculiaridades y sobretodo diferentes contextos (y dificultades) que los han llevado a donde están ahora. Resaltaría que meter a un interno negro le da un mayor valor porque claramente las situaciones en las que se sitúa no son las comunes con los demás.
After I read the book "The Physician" again and saw the movie, I was expecting a similarly gripping story in this book, triggered by the German title "The Clinic". Unfortunately, I liked the book not so much and I was wondering why it received so many good reviews 45 years ago. To me it is clearly a "first work" and not necessarily a book I would recommend, in contrast to some other works of Gordon.
Nachdem ich das Buch "Der Medikus" nochmals gelesen hatte und auch den Film gesehen, erwartete ich eine ähnlich packende Geschichte in diesem Buch, ausgelöst durch den Titel. Leider gefiel mir das Buch nicht so gut und ich habe mich gewundert, weshalb das Buch vor 45 Jahre so gute Kritiken bekommen hat. Für mich ist es deutlich ein "Erstlingswerk" und nicht unbedingt ein Buch, das ich weiter empfehlen würde; im Gegensatz zu manche andere Werke von Gordon.