Cook County ICU: 30 Years of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases

by Cory Franklin MD

Overview

An inside look at one of the nation's most famous public hospitals, Cook County, as seen through the eyes of its longtime Director of Intensive Care, Dr. Cory Franklin. 

Filled with stories of strange medical cases and unforgettable patients culled from a thirty-year career in medicine, Cook County ICU offers readers a peek into the inner workings of a hospital. Author Dr. Cory Franklin, who headed the hospital’s intensive care unit from the 1970s through the 1990s, shares his most unique and bizarre experiences, including the deadly Chicago heat wave of 1995, treating some of the first AIDS patients in the country before the disease was diagnosed, the nurse with rare Munchausen syndrome, the first surviving ricin victim, and the famous professor whose Parkinson’s disease hid the effects of the wrong medication. Surprising, darkly humorous, heartwarming, and sometimes tragic, these stories provide a big-picture look at how the practice of medicine has changed over the years, making it an enjoyable read for patients, doctors, and anyone with an interest in medicine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897339254
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	122,696
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Cory Franklin, MD, spent twenty-five years as the director of intensive care at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He is an editorial board contributor to the Chicago Tribune and the author of Chicago Flashbulbs. His work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the New York Times, the New York Post, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

1 Climbing the Mountain of Medical School (and Finding It Is Just Snow and Ice) 1

2 Medications Can Make You (and the Fishes) Sick 15

3 The Emergency Room at Night: Radioactive Patients and Chocolate All Over the Place 25

4 Dead Men Don't Tell Tales, but Sometimes They Get X-Rays and ECGs 35

5 The Toughest Man in the Hospital Becomes the Most Pitiable 45

6 A Black Man in Dallas on the Day JFK Was Assassinated 55

7 Rib Tips and Homegoings 61

8 Of Little Green Men and Imaginary Highways 71

9 Poisons: KGB Umbrellas, the First Ricin Survivor, and a Suicidal Biochemist 81

10 The Woman with the Sore Thumb: Why Listening Is an Art 91

11 Don't Believe Everything You Read in the Medical Record 99

12 Sources of Embarrassment: Vibrators, Rashes, and Medical Students 107

13 The Mystery of the Seductive Nurse 117

14 The Princess and the King 125

15 The Duke of Spain and the Professor from Penn 131

16 West Side Drama in Three Parts 139

17 Mr. Rodriguez's Secret, and the Assassin's Victim 145

18 Of Presidents, Negro Leaguers, Serial Killers, and Linda Darnell 153

19 Tales from the Movies 163

20 Stay Away from the Hospital on Holidays If at All Possible 177

21 Yes, Physicians Can Be Arrogant and Heartless 183

22 The Disease That Turned Out to Be AIDS 191

23 Chicago Has Two Seasons 199

24 Working in a Free Clinic: Health Without Wealth 209

25 You Can't Stop Progress 217

Editorial Reviews

07/13/2015
Franklin, former ICU director of Chicago’s Cook County Hospital, girds his memoir with a simple yet powerful philosophy: as his medical career has been guided by his heart, he wants his profession as a whole to be grounded in empathy. The stories in this deeply humanist collection feature former patients, some well known and many well loved; remarkable fellow doctors prone to extreme arrogance; medical mysteries solved without the sleuths receiving their due attention; close encounters with celebrities; and Franklin’s own fleeting celebrity, including his technical advisor role on the Harrison Ford thriller The Fugitive. But Franklin, whose father also worked at Cook County, mostly writes of his love for a revered “charity hospital,” his profession, and the patients who made them both memorable. One such patient was CW, an elderly man whose heart was failing due to a bacterial infection caused by pulling out a tooth with some pliers. The “fancy doctors” scoffed at this “simple man from Texas who had no access to a dentist and no other recourse,” writes Franklin; “they had lost their empathy for people like CW long ago.” In a medical landscape dominated by “big business, a maze of profit centers, and bureaucracy,” Franklin’s fond memories contain seeds of pessimism about the future. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Longtime doctor and first-rate observer Cory Franklin writes that, in the emergency room, ‘the day shift was rap music, the evening shift was easy listening, and the overnight shift was jazz.’ Franklin is an overnighter, riffing on practitioners and patients, jamming with equal parts pride and regret about his fascinating and sometimes brutal world.” —Marilyn Johnson, author of Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble



“For those who know Cook County Hospital or trained there as I did, this book will rekindle emotions from those times. I can honestly say that this book is a phenomenal, funny yet poignant read. It’s a ‘must read’ for anyone interested in Chicago institutions and legends in medicine.” —George Bakris, MD, FASN, FAHA, Professor of Medicine, University of Chicago Medicine



“The Cook County Hospital intensive care unit was the focal point whereupon Chicagoans in the inner city either survived or succumbed to the rigors of urban life. Using a combination of clinical anecdotes from all phases of his medical career and historical notes, Dr. Franklin resuscitates the Cook County ICU, bringing it back to life for the reader. A must read for anyone interested in the historical landscape of Chicago critical care.” —Jerrold B. Leikin, MD



“[a] deeply humanist collection.” —Publishers Weekly


“For readers who enjoy true-medicine stories, this is one of those reward-yourself kinds of books filled with anecdotes you’ll eat up. It’s compelling, comic, and constantly addicting so, for you, missing Cook County ICU would be very wrong.” —The Bookworm Sez


"a fascinating book of interesting medical cases brought to life." —Blogging Astrid

From the Publisher