February09_2
Amazon is a wonderful thing; as usual, I'm 4 years behind the zeitgeist. Reading Joan Didion's 'A Year of Magical Thinking' last month, I bookmarked a book she mentioned and ordered it on Amazon. Joan used 'Intensive Care, A Doctor's Journal' as her guidebook to navigating intensive care wards during her daughter's illnesses. Oddly, I assumed it must be interesting.
John F Murray gives us his notes and reflections on every patient in his care for a month in San Francisco General Hospital's medical ICU. 60 patients, 15 died. We get their names, the barest bones of their story and the narrative of their passage out of the ICU. Ten or so patients into the book and the names and medical procedures are a blur. The medical detail is extraordinary, but because you never meet the patients (they're mute from intubation or medication, almost without exception), it's a very detached kind of voyeurism.
Murray is measured, concerned and concise. If you've read Jane Austen and found yourself coming over all Jane in conversation thereafter, you'll recognise the infectious effect of Murray's prose. I have been mentally diarising my working life in Murray-speak this week, elevating the minutiae of marketing to the life and death drama of ICU.
John F Murray gives us his notes and reflections on every patient in his care for a month in San Francisco General Hospital's medical ICU. 60 patients, 15 died. We get their names, the barest bones of their story and the narrative of their passage out of the ICU. Ten or so patients into the book and the names and medical procedures are a blur. The medical detail is extraordinary, but because you never meet the patients (they're mute from intubation or medication, almost without exception), it's a very detached kind of voyeurism.
Murray is measured, concerned and concise. If you've read Jane Austen and found yourself coming over all Jane in conversation thereafter, you'll recognise the infectious effect of Murray's prose. I have been mentally diarising my working life in Murray-speak this week, elevating the minutiae of marketing to the life and death drama of ICU.
Comments