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Real-life medical mysteries from the doctor whose New York Times column is the basis of the Channel Five show House, M.D. starring Hugh Laurie.
You're a doctor, faced with a 22-year-old woman who is dying before your eyes. Previously fit, happy, and rarely ill now she's wasting away, confined to a hospital bed. Test results are abnormal but inexplicable; a dozen other doctors have seen her but none have been able to figure out what's wrong. It's your job to save her. Where do you start?
In movies diagnosis is the one-liner that separates the fascinating symptoms from the initiation of life-saving therapy. But in reality it's a difficult, delicate blend of sophisticated technology and hands-on assessment. How a diagnosis is made is the most complex and exciting tale that doctors tell.
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, through the calculus of making a diagnosis, the necessary prerequisite to effective treatment.
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.
Dr Lisa Sanders is on the faculty of Yale University School of Medicine. Her widely-read Diagnosis column appears monthly in the New York Times magazine. She serves as a technical advisor for House M.D. Before entering medical school, Dr. Sanders was an Emmy Award-winning producer for CBS News, where she covered health and medicine.
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