In a time when standards are being applied to everything from the manufacturing of your car to the management of your portfolio, it is hard to imagine that your health and well-being are in the hands of men and women who follow no professional standards. When your life is at risk, such standards may mean the difference between proper care and malpractice. In a series of truthful—and shocking—accounts detailing the failures of doctors to properly care for their patients, Dr. Bernard J. Sussman, a professor of neurosurgery, passionately argues for the necessity of implementing standards for the medical profession to prevent the dire consequences of reckless and negligent medical practices. Such standards will assure patients the high level of medical care which Sussman insists we all deserve. Dr. Sussman places much of the blame for the deaths and injuries described in Pupils on a medical system that reinforces behaviors which border on irresponsibility and, most importantly, on doctors who are not held accountable for their decisions. Pupils will open your eyes to the risks you take as a patient while your doctors, quite free to act entirely on their individual discretion.
