In a time when standards are being applied to everything from the
manufacturing of your car to the management of your portfolio, it is
hard to imagine that your health and well-being are in the hands of men
and women who follow no professional standards. When your life is at
risk, such standards may mean the difference between proper care and
malpractice. In a series of truthful--and shocking--accounts detailing
the failures of doctors to properly care for their patients, Dr. Bernard
J. Sussman, a professor of neurosurgery, passionately argues for the
necessity of implementing standards for the medical profession to
prevent the dire consequences of reckless and negligent medical
practices. Such standards will assure patients the high level of medical
care which Sussman insists we all deserve. Dr. Sussman places much of
the blame for the deaths and injuries described in Pupils on a medical
system that reinforces behaviors which border on irresponsibility and,
most importantly, on doctors who are not held accountable for their
decisions. Pupils will open your eyes to the risks you take as a patient
while your doctors, quite free to act entirely on their individual
discretion.