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"Crichton writes superbly".
-- Chicago Tribune
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I don't watch ER at all - only bits of it once or twice, and bought this book for the simple reason that Michael Crichton is my favourite author.
What is clear is Crichton's fantastic ability to analyze everything about Massachusetts General Hospital where he worked as a student doctor, his ability to always view the bigger picture, and the relevance of his further research.
Those people expecting an ER style dramatic account of patients in life or death scenarios might be disappointed. There is an account of each patient at the start of each chapter (5 patients, 5 chapters), but then the chapter goes on to explain underlying issues such as previous, current and future problems, huge steps taken in the health service, etc, etc.
The book was written in 1969. Obviously there have been major changes to the health service since but the fact the book was written over 30 years ago does not make it feel out of date at all.
I'm no medical expert or even close but I quite enjoyed this book
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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23 reviews
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Solid Informational Novel
2 July 1999
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I am an enourmous fan of the TV show ER. Everyone knows that Michael Crichton created ER so when i finally found a copy of Five Patients, (the book is extremly hard to find), I quickly grabbed it off the shelf and bought it. I thought that it would be like reading an episode of ER. Boy was a wrong, but wrong in a good way. For each patient Crichton takes up between 45-60 pages. Only 10-12 of those pages are about the patient themself. The rest is information, not on medicine, but how the hospital has changed throughout the years. From surgery to cost to medicine itself. I enjoyed the information tremendously. And as anyone who reads my reviews knows, sometimes I'm not a big fan of an entire novel being informational.(Congo) But Five Patients is different. It taught me stuff about the hospital I didn't know, and added on to the stuff I already knew. However by the final patient, Edith Murphy, the information was something I already knew so that took a little away. But only a little. By reading this book, I can see my I enjoy ER so much. It's the best show on television in my opinion. Five Patients is true nonfiction work.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Don't expect ER
30 April 2003
Format:Mass Market Paperback
You will probably have the wrong impression of what this book consists of before you read it; I did. Some may think, or hope, that it is an ER-type medical thriller. It is not. Some, as I did, may think that it takes the cases of five individual patients and goes into a detailed description of how they were treated and cured. It does not. What the book actually does consist of is a series of five separate medical cases that are used to illustrate larger aspects of the hospital in general. The five cases average about 30 pages apiece, with about 4 or 5 pages of that going into the actual details of the case. The book is somewhat interesting: it goes into detail about the inner workings of a hospital that those outside of the medical profession probably know next to nothing about. This glimpse into the academic medical community is informative and makes for fairly interesting reading. The writing is dry and formal, often quite technical, which will, no doubt, turn off those who read Crichton merely for his page-turning suspense. Though the book has its merits, as mentioned above, one is ever aware, while reading it, that the book was written in 1969. Though some points of it are still valid and interesting, and Crichton's writing is always worth reading, it is inescapably quite outdated. One may get the most out of it by using it as a snapshot of how medicine was 30+ years ago. Of course, at any rate, this is a minor work in Crichton's canon. Reccommended only for hard-core fans of the author and perhaps medical historians looking for an objective look at medicine during the late 60's.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Five Patients. Five Stories. A Unique View of Crichton.
17 Jan 2007
Format:Mass Market Paperback
A must-read for any fan of Crichton, Five Patients will take you through the story of five patients of Massachusetts General Hospital. Written while he was still a student, the reader can glean an understanding of why Crichton writes the novels he does now. The non-fiction aspect of the book is atypical Crichton, but makes the stories that much more engaging.
Along with a deeper understanding of where Crichton comes from, the reader will also get a deeper understanding of the modern day hospital and the things that go right, and wrong, inside its walls.
This is not the Crichton you think you know, so don't buy it if you want another Jurassic Park. Instead, buy it as a window to the past to see a Michael Crichton you won't see anywhere else.
Along with a deeper understanding of where Crichton comes from, the reader will also get a deeper understanding of the modern day hospital and the things that go right, and wrong, inside its walls.
This is not the Crichton you think you know, so don't buy it if you want another Jurassic Park. Instead, buy it as a window to the past to see a Michael Crichton you won't see anywhere else.
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