by Tim Harry

Created on: July 23, 2008   Last Updated: April 11, 2009

As an author Robin Cook is now a highly respected writer of medical thrillers. Cook's writing career was catapulted into the bestseller lists through the publication of "Coma", a book that allowed Robin Cook to move from a successful medical career into a full time writing one. "Coma" may be over thirty years old, and although some of the medical content and technology now seems dated, the overall story line has held up well and makes for a compelling read.

I only got into reading the books of Robin Cook after watching the Michael Crichton film of 1978, titled with the same name. I have often found that the original books are usually far superior to the film, and I have to say that Robin Cook's Coma is no different. The film is though actually a fairly accurate representation of the book, although the book holds far more tension than the film. Coma is a medical thriller, and as Robin Cook graduated from the Medical School at Columbia University, as well as undertaking a postgraduate course at Harvard, it is obvious that Robin Cook knows what he is writing about.

For those who have yet to read Coma, and are wanting to, then I should warn you that the rest of this article provides a synopsis of the book, and will act as a spoiler.

The book is based around Susan Wheeler, who is a third year medical student, undertaking her training at the Boston Memorial hospital. As part of her training, Susan is required to take part in rounds around the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and the surgery areas. Her training is undertaken by Dr Mark Bellows, the Boston Memorial Hospital's surgery resident.

The initial parts of Coma are taken up by delving into the workings of the hospital, and the life of a trainee. In itself this is actually more interesting than it sounds, but the book reaches new levels as it starts to delve into the operations and surgery that the hospital is undertaken.

There is a succession of operations that end in patients becoming brain dead after operations, a problem that is blamed on problems with the anaesthetics, but is actually due to a lack of oxygen, as CO2 is substituted. Susan Wheeler decides to investigate the prevalence of comatose patients, often to the detriment of her own training. It quickly becomes apparent that cases of comas are almost a hundred times more likely to occur at the Boston Memorial Hospital, than at any other hospital. Susan's investigations lead her eventually to the Jefferson Institute.

The Institute is publicly recognised as one of

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