Children’s Hospital Boston Book Group

Next Meeting: Wednesday, November 3rd at 7:30am and Thursday, November 4th at Noon– Final Exam

In Final Exam, Pauline Chen shares the experiences from her medical training and her career as a surgeon that have shaped her views about caring for critically ill patients.  You can listen to Chen talk about some of these life-changing encounters with patients in her interview with Scott Simon on NPR’s Morning Edition, which was aired on January 27^th, 2007.  The author’s October 21^st New York Times “Doctor and Patient” editoial  also explores how accepted medical protocol is sometimes at odds with providing quality end-of-life care.  Dr. Chen shares similar stories in her blog. 

 Alison was able to find the study entitled “A Controlled Trial to Improve Care for Seriously Ill Hospitalized Patients: The Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments (SUPPORT),” by the Support Principle Investigators that Dr. Chen cites as part of her discussion of improving the quality of care to critically ill patients.   Chen also mentions the article, “From the Eye of the Storm with the Eyes of a Physician,” by Hacib Aoun, who writes about being a physician and living with HIV, which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine 1992; 116:335-8.   

Final Exam was reviewed in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Atul Gawande’s article in the New Yorker, Letting Go, What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?  addresses many of the same issues as Pauline Chen.