"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than a society gathers wisdom."
(Isaac Asimov)
THE PLAGUE WITHIN
Brier Hospital Series
BY
LAWRENCE W. GOLD, M.D.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
SUMMARY
Even in the age of the genome and sophisticated biotechnology, medical progress still moves at a snail’s pace. Seasoned investigators are matured by experience and they accept the virtue of the too-slow scientific process. The young, however have been brought up in a world of instant gratification, and they barrel ahead never looking back to see the havoc in their wake.
So it is with Dr. Harmony Lane. In her single-minded obsession to cure her patients, she cuts corners and treats a desperately ill woman with an experimental viral vector provided by an unscrupulous research scientist. While he shares her impatience, he cares nothing for her humanistic sensibilities. She uses a similar vector on her patients with autoimmune diseases.
While the vector has remarkable curative properties, it soon becomes clear that it has devastating and lethal side effects.
The race is on to cure or at least control the vector before it kills again.
The novel proves, once again, that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”
- Series: Brier Hospital
- Paperback: 364 pages
- Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (June 1, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1489534520
- ISBN-13: 978-1489534521
REVIEW
To begin with, the cover is fantastic. It drew me in immediately. When you are sick, really sick you look to doctors to help get you will. You do everything they tell you to do and you get no better. You naturally seek a second opinion. You might come to the point of trying some off the wall alternative methods. Anything to get you will.
Here we have two doctors, two different approaches to medicine, one uses experimental and the other stays with the traditional medical methods. Rachel Palmer becomes sicker and sicker each day. Her family fears that she is dying. She is being treated in the traditional method. Then we have a family conflict as to how Rachel should be treated. Her husband wants to stay with the traditional method but Rachel's mother wants to try something different. Dr. Lane is willing to try anything that the patient wants to try in order to make her feel better. Have the consequences and after effects been noted? Is it worth it?We have a gifted scientist who works with DNA and viruses. His research is notable but not quite above board. He leaves out the negative parts of the projects and only states the positive sides.
Rachel is being treated along with other lupus patients by the three doctors. Wonderful news. The treatments seem to be working until the negative effects start to show up. Now the race is on to save lives. It's no longer just Rachel but so many others.
The book gives an overall of the patients, the doctors, the families and the medical staff and the discovering of new up to date real life situations. Very realistic in the characters and the situations. Who actually has the final say so? The doctors? the patients? the family? or all? The author wrote vividly of the challenges facing not only the patients but the medical staff and family as well. I know there have been times when I could place myself in this situation, not with Lupus, but with other medical problems. Sometimes you don't where or which way to turn. Do you trust one doctor over another or do you go with your gut instinct? The book is definitely a page turner with a fast paced plot. So realistic, it's almost unreal. True it is fiction but as you read you become so absorbed that the doctors and the other characters become real.
I was given a complimentary copy of THE PLAGUE WITHIN from the author, Lawrence W. Gold, M.D. for my view of the book. No other compensation took place.
I would give this book 5 STARS.
LINKS
bemiown@yahoo.com
http://bemiown.blogspot.com
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/982105269
www.lawrencegoldmd.com
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1ZY4WQMMIO6BY/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1489534520
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