Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science [abridged audiobook]

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Title: Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science [abridged audiobook]
Author: Atul Gawande
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Year: 2007
Pages: ?

I like Gawande and I liked this book when I read it a few years ago. The audiobook, which is abridged, was less enjoyable for me. Not having the physical book in front of me when I listened, I can't say where the abridgments took place, but I did notice that at a number of points, I thought, "That's an oversimplified explanation" or "That's a romantic interpretation of that data." Perhaps the boring scientific stuff, which is what makes a book like this for a reader like me, is what was cut. Or perhaps the cuts were elsewhere and the lacunae jumped out because the speaker goes through the material so much more slowly than I read that there was more time for me to notice thoughts that seemed incomplete. Or maybe I've hit that point in academia where I follow the logic more than the passion.

I'll say this for listening to the book: It's a great diet aid. I can read a phrase like "I sliced firmly with my scalpel into the glistening yellow fat" and not have much response. (That's a made up sentence, though Gawande does like his fat to glisten). Hearing it aloud, though, turns out to be viscerally distressing. This makes me want to get a lot of medical narratives on CD so I can listen to a segment every time I want dessert.