Reviews

Pierce Scranton's breathless and turbulent account of a physician's career is captivating. Some things go well, some things go terribly wrong. Vivid and disorienting, Death on the Learning Curve is a roller coaster ride through the world of medicine. Buckle your seat belts.           - P. F. Kluge, Author of Final Exam and other books

Pierce Scranton has written a lively, realistic, and absorbing account of the trial by fire that constitutes a young surgical resident’s training. The Learning Curve has the ring of authenticity and gives the general reader an insight into the complex, daunting, yet exhilarating process of the making of a surgeon.           - Leonard Shlain MD, Surgeon and author of Art & Physics, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, and Sex, Time and Power.

Thanks for sharing with me your book on the life of new doctors on their internship at a teaching hospital. Your depiction of the hospital draws in the reader with its vivid, stunning detail. It makes me feel that I’m right there, looking over the shoulders of these interns trying to save a patient while simultaneously process the extraordinary event into their own life experience. A woman hit by a truck dies of multiple fractures and lacerations; an alcoholic needs amputation for a gangrenous limbs; and a burn patient succumbs to a misplace antiseptic, all in a day’s work. On the controversial issues such as abortion, the physician’s point of view gives us a lot to think about as one doctor removes a live fetus from a psychiatric patient who was raped, while another doctor tries to save a teenager victim of a self-induced abortion attempt. While much of the story reflects medical practice twenty-five years ago, doctors today still face “the learning curve” to become effective healers. I learned a lot from this story, and the anguished struggle of these doctors to heal their patients will stick with me for a long time.            - Joan Slonczewski, Professor of Biology, Kenyon College