Rocketgirl's Full Review: Michael Palmer - Patient
Michael Palmer is known for his medical thrillers. He is not as well known as Robin Cook, but he writes the same type of chilling tales. What makes these books different from other types of horror or suspense novels is that they are based on scientific fact and human behavior and could actually happen in real life. Most are about unethical doctors using their skills in an illegal way for personal benefit. Something totally believable in today’s world. This one is especially believable in today’s terrorist environment. What makes it even more scary is that this one was written in 1999 just before the terrorist attacks in the United States. I keep running into these type of books–I wonder if our writers have more political savvy than government officials!!
The main character is Jesse Copeland, a neurosurgeon at Eastern Massachusetts Medical Center in Boston. Jesse performs surgeries but she is also in charge of experimentation of a surgical robot known as ARTIE. The robot is very tiny and can be inserted in a tube and inserted into the skull to remove tumors, blood clots, etc. Jesse has been in charge of testing the robot on cadavers but isn’t quite ready to test it on real patients. Unfortunately, the arrogant Dr. Gilbride, her boss, chooses to test in a live situation. He is not skilled enough to use it properly and the surgery ends up causing brain damage to the patient.
Meanwhile, an evil terrorist checks into the hospital. He has heard about the advanced capabilities of the new robot. He has what he had been told was an inoperable tumor, but with the robot, his life could be saved. He and his gang of thugs commandeer the neurosurgical floor to ensure Dr. Gilbride and Dr. Copeland understand that he is their highest priority. If they don’t operate he promises to unleash deadly gas throughout the Boston area. A story right off the front pages.
I enjoyed this story just like I have enjoyed all of Michael Palmer’s other books, because I like medical thrillers. This is because my mother was a nurse and I have been around the terminology and the stories all my life. It is a good thing I had this special interest because otherwise I might have gotten very impatient. I was over halfway through before I even find out who the terrorist is and the really suspenseful part of the book began. Many others who do not have the interest I do would have given up long before this I think, because up to that point the book doesn’t really go anywhere. It just has the doctors checking in on patients and testing the robots. The only real value, plot-wise, is that the first half shows how Dr. Gilbride’s arrogance and god-playing leads to trouble. I really do wish the people who wrote the blurbs on the back of book jackets were accurate and that they at least read the book they are describing. This one was completely misleading.
The slow pacing aside, the story does give good inside into how a hospital works and the compassion that doctors (well some of them anyway) have for their patients. The author is a doctor himself so he can describe a hospital situation as it really is. There is a lot of medical and scientific jargon used, but is not so complex it goes over your head. For me, it was easy to follow, but may not be for others. Michael Palmer brings a lot of realism to his stories because of his personal experience. And the thought that a terrorist would use threats to get a critical operation is also believable, especially when this one threatens to use deadly gas to kill innocent people. Its been done.
Besides Jesse and Dr. Gilbride, there are several other medical staff members that are part of the story and some of them have critical but small parts. It is interesting to see how they fit into the surgical team. There are also several patients, one in particular that plays a critical part in catching the terrorists. Because of this the second half of the book is much better than the first, plot-wise.
There is a fair amount of violence, as the terrorists do kill some people in the hospital. Some of this is described fairly graphically, though more from a clinical standpoint. On the plus side, there is no sexual content (who had time for it??) and very little profanity. If they can get past the medical jargon, most teens could probably digest and understand the story easily. The idea of the surgical robot is fascinating.
So if medical thrillers interest you, this book is for you. If you are more interested in general suspense novels, you may be a bit disappointed that it takes so long to get to the meat of the matter. But it is still an interesting book, nonetheless, because it is something that I can easily conceive happening in real life.
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