cover image Diagnosis: Dispatches from the Frontline of Medical Mysteries

Diagnosis: Dispatches from the Frontline of Medical Mysteries

Lisa Sanders, Lisa Saunders. Broadway, $24.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-7679-2246-3

In her first book, internist and New York Times columnist Sanders discusses how doctors deal with diagnostic dilemmas. Unlike Berton Roueché in his books of medical puzzles, Sanders not only collects difficult cases, she reflects on what each means for both patient and struggling physician. A man arrives at the hospital, delirious, his kidneys failing. Batteries of tests are unrevealing, but he quickly recovers after a resident extracts two quarts of urine. An abdominal exam would have detected the patient’s obstructed, grossly swollen bladder. The author then ponders the neglect of the physical exam, by today’s physicians, enamored with high-tech tests that sometimes reveal less than a simple exam. Another patient, frustrated at her doctor’s failure to diagnose her fever and rash, googles her symptoms and finds the correct answer. Sanders uses this case to explain how computers can help in diagnoses (Google is not bad, she says, but better programs exist). Readers who enjoy dramatic stories of doctors fighting disease will get their fill, and they will also encounter thoughtful essays on how doctors think and go about their work, and how they might do it better. (Apr. 14)