Book Review: "Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole"
An extraterrestrial dropping into a modern-day hospital might be forgiven for thinking it was run by machines.
Against a techno soundtrack of whirs and beeps, sleep-deprived doctors file in and out of exam rooms. They ask patients a series of standard questions, and make a few clicks on a computer to order a blood test or chest X-ray or pain meds. Then they hustle out the door to repeat the protocol on the impossibly large number of other patients under their watch. When their shifts end, some 12 or 18 or even 28 hours later, these zombies in blue scrubs are replaced by others, while the unflappable computers ease the handoff.
The tech-centric approach to medicine has its benefits, to be sure. Imaging machines and genetic screening give doctors biological clues otherwise hidden. Computers can make hospitals more efficient, and prevent dumb mistakes. But the practice of medicine cannot be reduced to algorithms, pixels and protocols, as the neurologist Dr. Allan H. Ropper subtly argues in his entertaining book, “Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole.” To Dr. Ropper, medicine is a craft — an art — that depends on the human interaction between doctor and patient.
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