Five Patients

Five Patients
First edition cover
Author	Michael Crichton
Language	English
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	June 1970
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	231
ISBN	0-394-42508-1
OCLC	79062
LC Class	RA982.B7
Followed by	Jasper Johns

Five Patients is a non-fiction book by Michael Crichton that recounts his experiences of hospital practices during the late 1960s at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and describes the changes he anticipates in healthcare in coming years. It is his first non-fiction book.^[1]^[2]

The book describes each of five patients through their hospital experience and the context of their treatment. Crichton notes in the foreword of the 1994 reprint of this book that medical practices (both the culture, technology, and finances) have changed significantly since the book was written, but that the text was left as is to give a more complete glimpse into the past.

The five patients were Ralph Orlando, a construction worker seriously injured in a scaffold collapse; John O'Connor, a middle-aged dispatcher suffering from fever that has reduced him to a delirious wreck; Peter Luchesi, a young man who severs his hand in an accident; Sylvia Thompson, an airline passenger who suffers chest pains; and Edith Murphy, a mother of three who is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.

Crichton recounts a brief history of medicine until 1969 to help contextualize hospital culture and practice and mentions national healthcare, drug prices, healthcare costs, and healthcare politics. The increasing cost of healthcare is a major theme – then at 15% per year.

He quotes Dr. James Howard Means, who is critical of the American Medical Association: "every attempt has been made by liberally-minded groups to improve medical care and make it more accessible...the AMA has attacked with ever increasing truculence... They forget perhaps that medicine is for the people, not for the doctors. They need some enlightenment on this point."

References

^ Seligson, Marcia (June 8, 1969). "The versatile Crichton". Chicago Tribune. p. k6.
^ Redlich, F. C. (2 Aug 1970). "Five Patients". New York Times. Retrieved 2 February 2020.

Bibliography

Crichton, Michael, Five Patients, Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-345-35464-8

v t e Michael Crichton
Bibliography
Novels	The Andromeda Strain (1969) The Terminal Man (1972) The Great Train Robbery (1975) Eaters of the Dead (1976) Congo (1980) Sphere (1987) Jurassic Park (1990) Rising Sun (1992) Disclosure (1994) The Lost World (1995) Airframe (1996) Timeline (1999) Prey (2002) State of Fear (2004) Next (2006) Pirate Latitudes (2009) *  Micro (2011) *  Dragon Teeth (2017) *  Eruption (2024) *
Novels written under pseudonyms	Odds On (1966) Scratch One (1967) Easy Go (1968) A Case of Need (1968) Zero Cool (1969) The Venom Business (1969) Drug of Choice (1970) Dealing: or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1970) Grave Descend (1970) Binary (1972)
Post-Crichton novels	The Andromeda Evolution (2019)
Non-fiction	Five Patients (1970) Jasper Johns (1977) Electronic Life (1983) Travels (1988)
Films directed	Pursuit (1972) Westworld (1973) Coma (1978) The First Great Train Robbery (1978) Looker (1981) Runaway (1984) Physical Evidence (1989)
Films written	Extreme Close-Up (1973) Westworld (1973) Jurassic Park (1993) Rising Sun (1993) Twister (1996)
Television series	Beyond Westworld (1980) ER (1994–2009) Westworld (2016–2022)
Adaptations	The Andromeda Strain (1971) Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972) The Carey Treatment (1972) Pursuit (1972) The Terminal Man (1974) The First Great Train Robbery (1978) Jurassic Park (1993) Rising Sun (1993) Disclosure (1994) Congo (1995) The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) Sphere (1998) The 13th Warrior (1999) Timeline (2003) The Andromeda Strain (2008)
Video games	Amazon (1984) Westworld 2000 (1996) Timeline (2000) Jurassic Park series
Franchises	Westworld (1973–2022) Jurassic Park (1993–present)
Related	Antarctica cooling controversy
*Released posthumously

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