Non è un romanzo ma un saggio, cosa che l'edizione italiana dice in modo assai nascosto, ovviamente. Consigliatissimo per tutti (ahem...) gli interessati allo stato della sanità americana negli anni '70, gli altri possono tranquillamente ignorarlo: il valore narrativo di questo libro è nullo. Chi ama le storie adrenaliniche di Chichton ha molti altri titoli a cui attingere, mentre chi volesse appassionarsi ai casi clinici troverà molto più gratificante la lettura dei libri di Oliver Sacks, opere di ben altro livello sia dal punto di vista estetico sia da quello scientifico.

This book was definitely not what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised. Crichton doesn't investigate and discuss the cases of 5 patients, he briefly gives some detail and then use them to transition into trends and different topics of medicine and hospitals in general. Five Patients contains a lot of detail and insights but the information is broken down and presented in a way that is easy to read. It was interesting to see that a lot of problems that the medical industry faced at the time of writing is still present today in some form. The book gave me more insight into an industry that I know very little about.

DNFd on page 66
I thought this was going to be an exploration of 5 patients’ medical treatment and to some extent it is. However, the larger part of this book seems to be an examination of the history and present of the medical field at large, which I am just not interested in, especially given that this is now an outdated source for the subject.

I'd heard several people complain that this book was outdated. Yes... that is the entire point of reading it in 2021. If you'd like a take on current medicine, read a current book (or read the foreword). Part of the charm of reading Five Patients is looking back 50 years, especially for us young folk. Not all of Crichton's predictions are accurate (who could expect them to be?), but give a solid idea of the state of medicine and its practitioners at the time.

The dividing of the book into five sections for five patients, and more importantly five different topics in medicine (general hospital history, cost of healthcare, history of surgery, technology in the medical field, and medical education, respectively), works fairly well, but Crichton fails to consistently tie each patient's story to the topic to which he devotes each chapter. I wonder how well Five Patients would read split into two different books: one telling the stories of each patient, and another a collection of essays about the state of medicine in 1969.

Earlier Michael Crichton, an interesting read. Despite being so pop-culture, I have to admit a weakness for MC because he's a science nerd and so am I. :)

I expect to read more about the patients in this book. But reading the history of medicine through Crichton's research is also really interesting. I have little knowledge about hospitals or health industry, aside from movies. So, this book can give me some references on the subject.

I love Michael Crichton books. He is one of my favorite authors and many of his books rank among the top couple books on my list. However, this book is not one of them. Upon reading the back cover before buying the book, I believed I picked up a thriller that combines cutting edge science and technology. I quickly found that I would be sorely disappointed.

The name of the book basically is what the plot is entirely about. It focuses on five different cases of patients at the Massachusetts General Hospital. I found that the book isn't really a true story by normal standards. What Crichton has done is use the five different cases to explain current trends in medicine. The cases presented do not provide any sort of anticipation or excitement. They are just random health anomalies or accidents which are used to helped transition into different topics of medicine.

The explanations are very in depth and well thought out, but they are not very interesting to read for the common person. Crichton does a good job at breaking down the information that is presented. Much of what he talks about is very specialized to the field of medicine, but he explains it all very clearly (although some parts are just too complex to understand without further research). Crichton also touches on some of the problems facing people and medical costs at the time of publishing. These problems still exist and it was interesting to some degree to read more in depth to some of the problems plaguing the health care system.

For the most part, this book is not your typical Michael Crichton book. It focuses more on factual evidence on the trends in medicine and hospitals rather than actual story and excitement. If you find yourself interested in a medical profession, than this book may be very interesting to you. If you are looking for a good story and excitement, this may not be the best choice.

The stories about the patients was interesting, but the majority of the book was a very hard, uninteresting read.

Five Patients by Michael Crichton
Paperback
Read 12/10/2020-12/14/2020
Three stars

I saw this book in a LFL and thought I’d give it a try. I’ve read other Crichton books and the blurb on the back made me thing this would be an interesting read.

I was wrong.

The parts about the five patients are great! He says in the forward that the stories are just stories at random and are medical anomalies or miracles. The issue I have is the filler between the stories. Crichton talks a lot about of the procedures and other happenings in the medical field and ways they are problematic and ways they can be improved. And if you don’t have an interest in the medical field, it’s just boring. There’s a lot of larger terms (there is even a glossary) and I found my mind wandering until I got back to another patient story.

I did find some things interesting such as the things that are still similar in the medical field and how fast some of the procedures had been developed. I laughed when they said having medical appointments via closed-circuit TV could be a thing of the future (especially in 2020).

For the most part, this was a quick read but I only give it 3 stars because I wanted more medical drama and less facts about the medical community.

It is an interesting view on the history of medicine, the "present" day experiences in medicine and the predicted future of medicine. Since this book was written in the 90's it was interesting to see how far medicine has come and interesting to see that some of Michael Crichton's predictions for the future of medicine have come to be. A decent read, although not my normal genre of book.

I was expecting interesting case studies but was disappointed as these were mundane common occurrences. The book is a good historical collection of medical care in the 1960's but wasn't what I was expecting. I read the patient stories which were really only introductory to the points Crichton wanted to make about the current issues in health care (and by current we are talking 1960's). I skimmed over the points he made as it was not what I was after - I am a huge fan of Crichton's work but the blurb on the back of this book led me to expect something completely different to what I found in the pages - don't judge a book by it's cover by any means.

This is a non-fiction book that describes the inner working of a hospital, specifically Massachusetts General Hospital, where Michael Crichton once studied medicine. It is very interesting, although a little dated. He intricately details five patients, their cases, and their prognosis. After reading this book, I'm so glad to be born in this part of the century when medicine has made such provocative advancements.