A. Hailey was born in England, served in the Royal Air Force from the start of World War II in 1939 until 1947, Soon he went to live in Canada. Most of his novels were written in the period between 1960s and 1990s. These are Flight into Danger, “Hotel,” “Wheels,” The Final Diagnosis. Hailey was best known for writing “Airport. Several of them were made into TV shows and films. “Airport” was adapted to the big screen in 1970 and helped launch the disaster movie genre. Airport became a blockbuster movie with stunning visual effects. His stories are thrilling and read well.
He would spend about one year researching a subject, followed by reviewing his notes and, finally, writing the book. Each of his novels has a different industrial or commercial setting and includes, in addition to dramatic human conflict, carefully researched information about the way that system functions and how these affect society and its inhabitants. In his books Aurthur Hailey takes his readers behind the scenes in a hospital, an airport, a motor plant or a bank. His books received rather indufferent reviews from critics, but were hits with the public.
However, he was so popular with readers that his books were guaranteed to become best-sellers. | | 2. Comment on the title The Final Diagnosis is a story of the life and death struggles in a large hospital, it focuses on Joe Pearson, the chief pathologist who must make the final diagnosis on every patient, and eventually on himself. So the title is of a double level. The primary level concerns Joe Person’s diagnosis on Vivian which proves to be right. Its metaphoric meaning relates himself and is also right. In fact it is a thorough and honest summing up of his professional carrier.
What is more he doesn’t spare his self esteem and shares his experience with the young doctor. However it rarely helps the young generation to escape the mistakes of previous generations in contrast to the pathology lab wisdom “The dead teach the living” The final diagnosis is a story of people who take decisions which could mean life or death to others ,but mostly it’s a story of realization. Medicine needs practitioners stay up to date. Just because you have those two letters meaning some degree in front of your name doesn’t provide you immunity from the crime of losing touch with newer research.
But the idea could certainly be extended beyond medicine. Q 3 A typical USA provincial hospital in the 1960s is described in the novel The Final Diagnosis. What Kent O’Donnel first saw in the Three Counties hospital appalled him. The hospital was run down physically, its organization slack, its medical standards—with a few exceptions—low. Money was scarce. But it was not only the question of money. The chiefs of surgery and medicine had held their posts for years; O’Donnell had sensed that their objective in life was to preserve an amiable status quo.
The administrator—key man in the relationship between the hospital’s lay board of directors and its medical staff—was incompetent. The hospital’s intern and resident training program had fallen into disrepute. There was no budget for research. Conditions under which nurses lived and worked were almost medieval. In fact it was a second line backwater hospital. Once the Three Counties Hospital was progressive, modern, and rated high in the state, It had fallen a victim to complacency. The chairman of the board had been an aging man who most of the time had delegated responsibility to someone else. The lack of leadership was felt at all levels.
Heads of divisions had mostly held their posts for many years and wanted no change. Younger men beneath them soon had become frustrated and moved elsewhere. Finally the hospital’s reputation became such that young, highly qualified graduates no longer desired to join the staff. So It took the will and efforts of such driving men as Kent O’Donnel and Gordon Brown to change the scene. Q4 Perhaps there are few people who would disagree with the statement. Moreover it should be extended to other professional areas. However giving a second thought to it most people would accept it with some reservation.
For one thing it is unrealistic to expect practitioners to keep pace with both theoretical and practical medicine. They have too much daily work and little if any time for recreation let alone spending regular hours on reading professional stuff. For another thing they need to be more conservative and practiced only tried and tested methods, particularly in medicine. I am not sure about the way it worked in the USA in 1960s . But nowadays there is a national Food and Drug Agency that circulates instructions to hospitals and practitioners on the use of new drugs and methods in practice.
The agency is a watch dog in the industry, First it receives convincing evidence that a drug or method had successfully passed trials and then gives a green light to new developments. As far as I know there is such an official body in this country too. Q5 He summed up his experience in his farewell words to Coleman: the phone will ring, and it’ll be the administrator talking about budgets. Next minute one of the lab staff will want to quit; and you’ll have to smooth that out. And the doctors will come in, and they’ll want this bit of information and that. That’s the way the next day can go, and the next, and the one after that.
Until you find a year has slipped by, and another, and another. And while you’re doing all this you’ll send other people on courses to hear about the new things in medicine because you can’t take time out to go yourself. And you’ll quit investigation and research; and because you work so hard, you’ll be tired at night, and you won’t feel like reading textbooks. And then suddenly, one day, you’ll find everything you knew is out of date. That’s when it’s too late to change. ” Listen to an old man who’s been through it all, who made the mistake of falling behind. Don’t let it happen to you!
Lock yourself in a closet if you have to! Get away from the phone and the files and paper, and read and learn and listen and keep up to date! Then they can never touch you, never say, ‘He’s finished, all washed up; he belongs to yesterday. ’ Because you’ll know as much as they do—and more. Because you’ll have experience to go with it . . . ” Q6 David Coleman described his vision of practitioners contribution to research and development in medicine in the following way. In a way medicine is like a war. And, just as in a war, sometimes there’s a spectacular advance.
When that happens, people—doctors—rush to the new front. And they leave a lot of pockets of knowledge to be filled in behind. ” Elizabeth said, “And that’s the pathologist’s job—to fill them? ” “It’s the job of every branch of medicine. But sometimes in pathology there are more opportunities. ” Coleman thought a moment, then continued, “There’s another thing too. All research in medicine is very much like building a wall. Someone adds a piece of knowledge—puts one brick on another; someone else adds one more, and gradually the wall grows. Finally someone comes along and puts the last brick on top. ” He smiled.
“It isn’t given to many to do spectacular things—to be a Fleming or some other outstanding discoverer.. The best a pathologist can do, usually, is to make some modest contribution to medical knowledge—something within his own reach, within his own time. But at least he should do that. ” However this approach is questionable nowadays when science does much at the level of molecules. Such research requires expensive sophisticated equipment. That is why research and development are mainly concentrated at special research centres. Do you need my thoughts on them it or you’ve got ithem on your finger tips?
Concerning individual reading, you are welcome to send me your pieces for review. The last and final diagnosis Joe Pearson made, concerned himself. He summed it up in his farewell words to Coleman: the phone will ring, and it’ll be the administrator talking about budgets. Next minute one of the lab staff will want to quit; and you’ll have to smooth that out. And the doctors will come in, and they’ll want this bit of information and that. That’s the way the next day can go, and the next, and the one after that. Until you find a year has slipped by, and another, and another.
And while you’re doing all this you’ll send other people on courses to hear about the new things in medicine because you can’t take time out to go yourself. And you’ll quit investigation and research; and because you work so hard, you’ll be tired at night, and you won’t feel like reading textbooks. And then suddenly, one day, you’ll find everything you knew is out of date. That’s when it’s too late to change. ” Do you need my thoughts on them it or you’ve got ithem on your finger tips? Concerning individual reading, you are welcome to send me your pieces for review.