Abstract
In Hollow Men, T. S. Eliot wrote, Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow. The shadow of intensive care, as Zussman describes it, is not only its impact on hospital-based medicine but also the way the intensive care unit culture obscures the role of its ICU physicians and nurses and their decision-making process. His book follows in the tradition of other University of Chicago Press classics in medical sociology such asForgive and Remember(Charles L. Bosk, 1972) andBoys in White(Howard S. Becker, Blanche Geer, Everett C. Hughes, Anselm L. Strauss, 1961) that lent insight into medical practice through outsiders' observations. Zussman spent several years rounding with medical teams, talking to staff, patients, and families, and evaluating data in two major teaching hospital intensive care units. The result is a perceptive insight into the differences between ideals and reality
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