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meganpalmer731's review
4.0
So much history and information is jammed into this book that looks at the long life of one of America's oldest and most interesting public hospitals. Gets a little wordy at times and tries to cover SO much in only 322 pages, but still fascinating and worth a read.
angiew23's review
4.0
Having watched New Amsterdam and read 12 Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital, I chose this book after deciding I wanted to know more. This book is a history of both the hospital and the city, state and country it is located in, from the 1700s to 2014. Moments in history including the civil war, presidential assassinations, the great influenza, Ebola, AIDS, hurricane Sandy, are peppered throughout, giving the reader an exorbitant amount of context and clear understanding of exactly how each event was tackled at the flagship public hospital. The thoughts/understandings of the day are carefully described, for example “miasma” vs germ theory, shock therapy vs deinstitutionalized mental health services, private vs public medical care etc, giving the reader the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the medical staff who were living and working during each of these periods. My only criticism is that at times the book seemed to go off on a tangent, or gave more context than necessary for the events that took place prior to 1930, especially events from about 1820-1875, and very little context or anecdotal information for some of the major events of the last century. 9/11 and Sandy were crammed into one chapter, but I know the names, family backgrounds and education of almost every prominent doctor there in the 1800s (lol, might be a slight exaggeration but trying to prove a point). This book is very informative but at times a bit dry due to a little too much context, but definitely gives a thorough history of this very interesting hospital.
librarylapin's review
4.0
This book was extremely interesting. I had heard some of the lore about the hospital but this delves into a great history of medicine, New York, and society. I was completely engaged with the material and didn't mind some of the city gossip. :)
cpalisa's review
5.0
Excellent book! Super interesting read about the history of Bellevue hospital. Sure makes you appreciate modern medicine!
nuhafariha's review
2.0
The scope of this book is too broad and in trying to appeal to a little bit of pop culture, a little sociology, a little history, etc. this book falls flat in all directions.
mcc's review against another edition
informative
5.0
Absolutely loved this book as it was a 3-for-1. By telling the history of this one famous hospital you also get a history of New York City and a history of medicine in America all rolled into it. I loved the layers of this and how it was constructed. It was fascinating and exactly the kind of non-fiction that I love!