"Crammed with provocative insights, raw emotion, and heartbreaking
dilemmas," (The New York Times) First, Do No Harm is a powerful
examination of how life and death decisions are made at a major
metropolitan hospital in Houston, as told through the stories of
doctors, patients, families, and hospital administrators facing
unthinkable choices.
What is life worth? And when is a life worth living? Journalist Lisa
Belkin examines how these questions are asked and answered over one
dramatic summer at Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. In an account
that is fascinating, revealing, and almost novelistic in its immediacy,
Belkin takes us inside a major hospital and introduces us to the people
who must make life and death decisions every day.
As we walk through the hallways of the hospital we meet a young
pediatrician who must decide whether to perform a risky last-ditch
surgery on a teenager who has spent most of his fifteen years in a
hospital; we watch as new parents battle with doctors over whether to
disconnect their fragile, premature twins from the machine that keeps
them breathing; we are in the operating room as a poor immigrant,
paralyzed from a gunshot in the neck, is asked by doctors whether or not
he wishes to stay alive; we witness the worry of a kidney specialist as
he decides whether or not to transfer an uninsured baby to the county
hospital down the road.
We experience critical moments in the lives of these real people as
Belkin explores challenging issues and questions involving medical
ethics, human suffering, modern technology, legal liability, and
financial reality. As medical technology advances, the choices grow more
complicated. How far should we go to save a life? Who decides? And who
pays?
