Routine Miracles: Restoring Faith and Hope in Medicine

Bringing doctors and patients together as never before, Routine Miracles is a beacon of joy in a climate of health scares, healthcare-industry woes, and naysayers who have led too many physicians to feel dissatisfied with their profession. Medicine, says Dr. Conrad Fischer, is still the world’s most glorious profession. Doctors and patients alike have myriad reasons to find inspiration in the medical field. Drawing on more than 3,000 interviews with doctors and medical residents, as well as hundreds of patients, Dr. Fischer celebrates modern medicine’s recent advances, including these miraculous realities:

• The life expectancy for a person with AIDS on today’s new medications is the same as that of an HIV-negative person

• We can transplant a cornea in four minutes

• There are 90% fewer people in mental hospitals compared with a generation ago

• Some leukemia patients have gone from 95% fatal to 95% survival with one pill a day, without side effects

• Fatal heart rhythm disease can be cured with a catheter in 30 minutes without surgery or a pacemaker

In the tradition of Sherwin Nuland, with a verve that is reminiscent of Mehmet Oz, Routine Miracles is a tribute to modern medicine’s most recent advances while also serving as incentive and inspiration for today’s medical students. In addition, Dr. Fischer proves that we all have a stake in encouraging the some of the best minds to consider careers in research. On these pages, readers will learn details of new treatments and other ways in which physical suffering is being eliminated in the world. This is a book about heroes: courageous doctors and courageous patients who believe in the positive power of medicine. We have never been able to heal more. New things, good things, have been developed with increasing speed, and Routine Miracles presents a passionate argument for rejoicing in them.