Book Review: A Patient’s Complete Guide to a Hospital Stay

A trip to a hospital as a patient is, almost without exception, a trying and daunting experience.

Cornell University Press’ “The Informed Patient – A Complete Guide to a Hospital Stay” gives patients the kind of information which can lower anxiety by demystifying the processes, quirks and culture of today’s modern hospital.

If a friend or family member is being admitted to a hospital, here is the book to slip into the bag they will be taking with them.

Karen A. Friedman, M.D., who is Program Director Internal Medicine residency program and assistant professor of medicine at Hofstra North Shore University Hospital (Manhasset, New York) , and Sara L. Merwin, MPH, who is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Bronx, New York) are the book’s authors.

According to Friedman and Merwin, U.S. hospitals have become increasingly complex and, at times, confusing institutions that discharge more than 3.4 million patients a year and deal with what the authors claim are 210,000 to 400,000 patient deaths a year due to preventable medical errors.

This 228-page book is a comprehensive and highly readable guide to a stay in a modern hospital. It covers almost everything—from soup to bedpan—that the hospital patient experiences.

The authors have included sections on tests and procedures, sections on lines, ports, drains, tubes and catheters, intensive care units, and special care populations.

The authors discuss both planned surgery and unplanned surgery, how to get along with a troublesome hospital roommate, how to file a complaint and how to monitor for warning signs and symptoms once you or your patient returns home.

This is one of, if not THE most comprehensive guide for hospital patients we’ve run across.

Nothing was left out.

What do you do if you think there was a medical error? Friedman and Merwin have advice for that.

Which one of those white-coated people striding down the halls in the hospital make up your patient’s care team? Friedman and Merwin have an answer for that.

How does a patient deal with the parade of individuals that the patient—lying helpless in a strange bed—must cope with? Again, the answers are in “The Informed Patient – A Complete Guide to a Hospital Stay.”

The book contains a helpful glossary.

But, most importantly, the authors leave the reader with a final tip.

Patients should remember to express their thanks to the staff who cared for them so diligently.

Chocolates, pizza or a chocolate pizza are recommended.

Cost of the book is $19.95, and it can be ordered from Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York