– by Srishti Mandal
‘Cell’ is one out of the many pulse-quickening medical thrillers that have been written by award-winning author Robin Cook.
In this book, George, a radiology attendant, finds himself wrapped in a web of deceit and actual life and death scenarios, when he uncovers a small (or is it?) chink in the armour of a company called Amalgamated Healthcare, that was trying to replace primary care physicians by a smartphone application that learns from its patients records, history and daily inputs.
The application, iDoc, in its clinical trial rounds, has a stellar reputation. Many patients have the app installed and use it as a primary care provider, on a trial basis. But during the Beta Testing round, problems start showing up in the manner of mysterious deaths of trial patients. However, these deaths are covered up faster than the blink of an eye and no one seems to be willing to answer the inquisitive George, who has been affected by this app through the death of his fiancé (also a trial patient).
This book shows us several sides of the medical “industry”. It shows us doctors who truly care about making a new-age, digitized method of patient-care; and it also shows us how, when even the smallest of problems are not immediately reported regardless of economic consequences or greed, it can spiral into something much harder to control.
This book is worth the read with regards to the glimpse of cutting-edge technology being used to monitor biological systems. If the idea of a mere smartphone monitoring how much insulin is released into the blood of a hypoinsulinemic patient, without the patient having knowledge of it, is something that grasps your attention, then this book is right up your alley.
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