Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

24 reviews

sarahweyand's review

challenging informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.5

I was alive when Katrina hit but too young to understand its impact. This book is well-researched, very detailed, and unflinching when it comes  to the accounts of the five days spent at Memorial and the fallout after the fact. The first half of the book recounts the five days during the hurricane, and the second half gives details on the aftermath and ensuing legal battle that occurred.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book and it was exactly what I expected going in. A great piece of narrative nonfiction that I would recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about this disaster. And then it started to drag. I figured Fink would get into some details of what happened after Katrina, but not to the extent that she did. While I do think that she does a good job of talking about the medical malpractice issues and discussing both viewpoints, it became repetitive for me and I found myself zoning out more frequently.

If you want a very full picture of what happened, this may just be the book for you, but at 550 pages, I'd recommend stopping after the fifth day at Memorial if you aren't as interested in the aftermath.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Animal death, Ableism, and Terminal illness

heatherilene's review

challenging dark emotional informative slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Cancer, Ableism, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Medical trauma, Chronic illness, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Racism, and Terminal illness

nursetess's review against another edition

challenging dark informative slow-paced

3.0

Reading this book while on a visit to NOLA has been eye-opening. As a nurse, espcially after covid, it is not difficult to see myself in the shoes of these people. Difficult, important read! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Medical content, Death, Violence, and Terminal illness

shereadytoread's review

informative sad tense slow-paced

4.5

Overall the book itself is incredibly well researched, detailed and written in a way that keeps readers interested although a lot of the first 1/2 is repetitive by nature of what occurred. I think the author does well at presenting a balanced look at what the doctors were thinking as well as the feelings of the families and law enforcement. 

My biggest issue with the book is how it is organized. The first half of the book contains about 7 chapters and then the second half of the book has only 2 chapters (totaling approx 250 pages together). While they were cohesive, they should have been better divided into small sections. (For reference chapters in the first section were approximately 1-1.5 hours on the audiobook and the chapters in the second section were almost 4 hours and 5 hours each. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death

Moderate: Terminal illness

sorayah11's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

Not a perfect book and could be dry, but gave me lots of information on an event I hadn't heard about before. I'm hoping to start nursing school in March and this book made me think a lot about someone's life, the field of medicine, and the ways the two can mix. I've mostly seen medicine favorably and I appreciated this bringing up arguments on the other side of that.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Racism, Death, Animal death, and Medical content

Minor: Cancer, Terminal illness, Gun violence, Chronic illness, and War

streberkatze's review against another edition

The first part of the book was incredibly gripping. Fink did an incredible job showing the reader the complexity of the situation and the sheer desperation and exhaustion that underlay everything that happened at Memorial Hospital during those five days. And she does so without ever being sensationalist. But while I appreciated this level of detail in the first part, it was too much for me in the second part. I gave it another try by listening to the audiobook version, but it was just too slow for me (especially so much has been written about the legal battle that ensued in shorter form). I'd still recommend this book. The second part just wasn't for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Grief, and Medical content

Moderate: Terminal illness, Cancer, Excrement, and Murder

ktdakotareads's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Death, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

tomato_bisque's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

The first third is a fast paced account of what occured over the day of the hurricane and the tragedies that followed in the days after. The later part of the book slows down and discusses the aftermath (investigations, rebuilding, political ramifications.) This might have been more compelling pre-covid but the fact that the US medical system and government cannot handle any sort of large scale disaster should not be surprising anymore. 

The book brings up ethical conundrums about how we should ration care in times of crisis. There are not easy answers.

Being unfamilar with the case, I was honestly kinda surprised how general public and the medical field rallied around Pou. Thank god the book expressed the dissenting points of views from other doctors because I thought I was going insane.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Abandonment, Animal death, Death, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Police brutality, Chronic illness, and Grief

beckbrl's review against another edition

informative sad tense fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Racism, Medical content, and Medical trauma

hurricaneflora's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Suicide, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Chronic illness, and Ableism