Listen free for 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Laws of Medicine cover art

The Laws of Medicine

Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
Narrated by: Santino Fontana
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $9.70

Buy Now for $9.70

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

Essential, required listening for doctors and patients alike: A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one of the world's premiere cancer researchers reveals an urgent philosophy on the little-known principles that govern medicine - and how understanding these principles can empower us all.

Over a decade ago, when Siddhartha Mukherjee was a young, exhausted, and isolated medical resident, he discovered a book that would forever change the way he understood the medical profession. The book, The Youngest Science, forced Dr. Mukherjee to ask himself an urgent, fundamental question: Is medicine a "science"? Sciences must have laws - statements of truth based on repeated experiments that describe some universal attribute of nature. But does medicine have laws like other sciences?

Dr. Mukherjee has spent his career pondering this question - a question that would ultimately produce some of the most serious thinking he would do around the tenets of his discipline - culminating in The Laws of Medicine. In this important treatise, he investigates the most perplexing and illuminating cases of his career that ultimately led him to identify the three key principles that govern medicine.

Brimming with fascinating historical details and modern medical wonders, this important audiobook is a fascinating glimpse into the struggles and "eureka!" moments that people outside of the medical profession rarely see. Written with Dr. Mukherjee's signature eloquence and passionate prose, The Laws of Medicine is a critical book not just for those in the medical profession but for everyone who is moved to better understand how their health and well-being are being treated. Ultimately this book lays the groundwork for a new way of understanding medicine now and into the future.

©2015 Siddhartha Mukherjee (P)2015 Simon & Schuster

What listeners say about The Laws of Medicine

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Short and helpful

Mukherjee provides excellent insights from a career in medicine and from his experience as biographer of medical history. Unlike his other books, this one is short and easy to finish!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Rob
  • 2020-01-29

Literature for every caregiver, young and old

Inspiration for care givers. Every medical, dental, veterinary and allied health practitioner should read this...then re-read it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Shedding light on an uncertain science

Mukherjee dissects open and reveals the principles of uncertainty that lie at the heart of such a consequential field, and in that attempt demystifies the experience of trainees and practicing physicians in navigating the dynamics of medicine. At points it is unclear who Mukherjee is speaking to, swaying from light commentary to the use of highly technical language. But mostly The Laws of Medicine succeeds in its endeavour to share the promise and the perils of what lies hidden behind the scrubs, tests, and equipment of 21st century medicine.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
  • P.
  • 2023-01-24

Problems identified but few solutions

A pretty good overview of the problems in medicine and medical research. Most readers of a research paper tend to take it at face value and never really consider whether the data found actually supports conclusions made. There are some very good examples here of how the same data could be interpreted in a totally different way. However after the problems are uncovered there are no detailed suggestions on what needs to be changed to overcome them. So I did not feel any further understanding from when I started reading this. Good, but it needed to go a lot further.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!