Diagnosis

A healthy young man suddenly loses his memory, making him unable to remember the events of each passing hour. Two patients diagnosed with Lyme disease improve after antibiotic treatment - only to have their symptoms mysteriously return. A young woman lies dying in intensive care - bleeding, jaundiced, incoherent - and none of her doctors know what is killing her. Dr Lisa Sanders, whose hugely popular New York Times column inspired the hit TV show House, M.D., takes us to patients' bedsides to witness the process of solving these and other diagnostic dilemmas, providing a first-hand account of the expertise and intuition that lead doctors to make the right decisions. Diagnosis combines the drama of House with the living, breathing world of real hospitals and real patients. Sanders, a practising doctor, leads us from the moment the patient first appears to the complex calculus of making a diagnosis, the necessary prerequisite to effective treatment. Through dramatic stories of patients with baffling symptoms, Sanders portrays the absolute necessity and surprising difficulty of getting the patient's story, the challenges of the physical exam, the pitfalls of doctor-to-doctor communication, the vagaries of tests, and the near-calamity of diagnostic errors. An endlessly fascinating medical detective story, Diagnosis opens up as never before the finer workings of the human body, and celebrates the dedicated physicians who we may all someday need to trust with our lives.