The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Medical Miracles and Other Disasters

Extraordinarily powerful and superbly written, this book has been widely acclaimed as a major work of popular science. It won an American Health Book Award in 1986. This gripping and provocative book looks at the modern hospital with a probing, intimate approach. Written by a registered nurse, it tells the dramatic, poignant real-life stories of both patients and caregivers caught up in the mysterious cycle of wellness and sickness. She is puzzled by the fascinating contradictions and paradoxes - the dubious miracles of modern medicine. Despite the panoply of high-tech technology, we cannot escape the feeling that medicine retains its primal roots of sorcery and that we are all its apprentices. It deals with the real-life stories of patients and care givers caught in the cycle of wellness and sickness and highlights the contradictions and paradoxes of modern medical miracles.