Shocked

An interesting look at the methods we use to resuscitate people whose hearts have stopped and how we can make those methods more effective. Not sure I'm entirely a fan of Casarett's writing style but it was easy to read and pretty informative! While it's nice to look at the “miracles” that can happen in bringing someone back from the dead, and it's great that there's much research into how to do that better, it's important to think about the morality of such decisions. As Casarett says at the end of the book, no one is going to prevent EMTs from trying to resuscitate a loved one in an emergency, even if you know they don't want to be resuscitated. When there's even a slight possibility that they will come through and have some more good years, it's hard to think about the greater possibility (especially among the elderly) that they'll just have a few more painful months or weeks.

Also there's a lot of animal testing in this research area so if you're not cool with reading about that, maybe skip this one!