The Best American Medical Writing 2009

by Pauline W. Chen (Editor)

The Best American Medical Writing 2009 highlights the year’s most poignant work from the genre’s fi nest authors— complete with an introduction by best-selling author and renowned transplant surgeon Pauline W. Chen. The Best American Medical Writing 2009 celebrates incisive writing on the subject of medicine and its practice. This inaugural volume features writings by the likes of preeminent writers such as Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande, and is culled from diverse sources such as The New Yorker, The New England Journal of Medicine, Salon, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, Discover, and many more. Contributors include the likes of Oliver Sacks writing on manic depression from The New York Times Review of Books, Amartya Sen on the innate, human right to health care from The Lancet, and Harriet Washington exploring the topic of race in professional medicine in an article for The New York Times. Other contributors may include:

• David Quammen

• Perri Klass

• Jason Zengerle

• Michael Sokolove

• Alex Kuczynski

• Jessica Bennett

• Rahul K. Parikh

• Barron H. Lerner

• Andrew Pollack

• Jennifer Traig

• Richard A. Friedman

Genres: Essays, Medicine

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Best American Medical Writing 2009, published oddly enough by Kaplan Publishing (the company known for standarized test prep and those oversized paperbacks of SAT, GRE, and MCAT sample tests), didn't seem to spawn a series like those other "Best of" genres. This appears to be a one-and-done. The selection of 23 essays and articles is of mixed quality. Spelling and punctuation can be inconsistent. Some are, naturally, out of date; the title "My Daughter's $29,000 Appendectomy" elicits the thought, hmm, only $29,000? Today that might be $80,000.

The best three were "DNA Pollution May Be Spawning Killer Microbes" from Discover magazine by Jessica Snyder Sachs (this appears to be available unpaywalled online, https://www.discovermagazine.com/dna-... "Superbugs" from the New Yorker by Jerome Groopman, and "Lessons from an Emergency Room Nightmare" from the American Prospect by Harold Pollock.

Pollock's interesting essay shows the dangers of misdiagnoses. Also, of not calling 911 right away. He admits he should have known better, as director of the University of Chicago Center for Health Administration Studies and someone who had served on expert panels at the Institute of Medicine. His wife, who was only 46 and in excellent physical shape, woke up during the night with chest and arm pain. They went to an urgent care facility, where her EKG was normal but enzyme levels high, suggesting heart cells had died. After four hours she was transferred to a community hospital ER, where a doctor told her she had had a heart attack. An angiogram showed no tissue damage or artery blockages. She was admitted to the ICU, where she stayed for three days. She was released and sent home; her recovery was slow.

Ten days later, she saw her regular internist at a university hospital. After a close reading of her medical record, talking with her, consulting with his colleagues, and performing an echocardiogram, which the previous hospital hadn't done, they all concluded that she hadn't had a heart attack after all, but viral myocarditis, a viral infection of the heart. A heart attack would have produced tissue damage. And it would have been unusual for a 46 year old, healthy woman who did lots of cardio workouts to have one.

The staff at the community hospital "seemed stuck in a groove created by their own initial treatment plan," wrote Pollock. "Their real mistake was to be incurious once the immediate crisis had passed." Equally worrisome, "if she falls ill tonight, an ambulance will deliver her to that community hospital, whose records indicate that she is a recovering heart attack patient taking a potent dose of beta-blockers. Nothing in our healthcare system reliably reconciles these different versions of reality."

[Andres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I like anthologies for the wide variety of material they can hold between their covers, and I really like reading about science and medicine. I already read the Nature and Science collections from Houghton Mifflin's Best American Series (which this series is not related to, being published by Kaplan), so a new anthology concentrating on medical writing was a must read for me.

To get the bad out of the way, the editing wasn't too bad but some articles suffered more than others, with mistakes ranging from missing words and lone quotation marks to an introduction (in the article) that previews 2 stories with only the first one being republished here. As with any anthology not every article will be a winner and some pieces here did fall flat for me, leaving me with an Oh instead of an Ooh.

There are 23 articles in this book and it is interesting to note 8 of them came from publications with some form of 'New York' in the title. Here's a rundown of my favorites:

My Daughter's $29,000 Appendectomy by Tom McGrath
An interesting look at just how complicated and strange the pricing game is for health insurance and hospitals.

The Uneven Playing Field by Michael Sokolove
Find out just how much more girls are getting injured in sports than boys (though personally I have little sympathy for anyone who willingly and repeatedly puts their health 2nd to playing---these are potentially life changing and very long term medical injuries that are swept aside for the chance to keep playing).

Fixing Mr. Fix-It by Diane Suchetka
A harrowing chronicle of man who is catastrophically injured.

DNA Pollution May Be Spawning Killer Microbes by Jessica Snyder Sachs
One of two articles that explains how the overuse of antibiotics creates drug-resistant microbial enemies.

Going Under by Jason Zengerle
Explores some reasons why anesthesiologists have higher addiction rates than other medical professionals.

Superbugs by Jerome Groopman
The second article dealing with antibiotics and how too much of a good thing really isn't.

We Fought Cancer... And Cancer Won by Sharon Begley
A sobering look at just how deadly cancer still is.

America's AIDS Apartheid by Kai Wright
A look at how devastating AIDS has been to a specific group in the U.S. and what needs to be done in order to prevent a catastrophe.

Another AIDS Casualty by David France
Another look at just how tough it can be to work in the health care industry.

Virtual Iraq by Sue Halpern
How the use of virtual reality has helped some soldiers treat their PTSD.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like science and medicine you are likely to love this book, edited by Pauline Chen who is a transplant surgeon. These are articles written people in the field as well as patients and caregivers, and previously published in a huge variety of magazines, some medical but most out there in the general public. The topics range all over the place and are fascinating to read. I had no idea, for example, that of all the medical specialties, anesthesiologists are the most prone to abusing the drugs they are around. With 23 chapters and a great introduction by Dr. Chen everyone should be able to find something of interest. FYI, this book is a first in an intended series so look for a new 2010 collection.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

2009, this appears to be a notion that never took off. Certainly, there would be enough within this framework published every year, but obviously there was no appetite for a collection. Like any anthology, some pieces were better than others. But, compared to other collections, there was a uniformity of writing voice here that made it less interesting together than any part of it would have been alone.