Andy Kessler’s first book was a memoir that sought to answer the question: why had Wall Street analysts gone from being the market’s toughest, most unsentimental critics to becoming the biggest cheerleaders of every technology stock that came along. WALL STREET MEAT explained that analysts went from being paid by the buy side (people who bought stocks) to being paid by the sell side (the bankers who issued stocks.) So it was no wonder that the bankers were getting all the support.
Partly because of this shift, Andy left Wall Street and opened a hedge fund in Silicon Valley. The story of his journey into world of investing is told in RUNNING MONEY and its companion title, HOW WE GOT HERE. In those books Andy relates his search for an investment edge and how he made a billion dollars in the stock market using the lessons he learned from the Industrial Revolution.
THE END OF MEDICINE picks up where RUNNING MONEY left off–after a fashion. Out of the hedge fund business but still consumed by a passionate interest in technology, Andy begins to discover that medicine is the next frontier. Indeed, seeing the same patterns he first witnessed in the computer chip business 20 years ago, Andy describes how medicine is about produce startlingly efficient imaging and mapping techniques that will enable your doctors to prevent serious ailments like heart disease and cancer. More than that, he shows how medicine will be transformed by removing doctors from the equation and substituting technology.
An exciting, thought–provoking and hilarious journey through the near future, THE END OF MEDICINE will delight readers, if that’s what you call reading the gory details of angioplasty.
Customer Reviews
stream_of_consciousness:
So at the Minneapolis AAPM meeting I meet this guy, Krishna Ramapathy, not his real name, who recommends this book, The End of Medicine. I think, oh, no, not another book for my reading list, but luckily I find I can read it at lightning speed since I don’t have to think too much as I flip the pages. Is this guy a comedian or serious journalist? I begin to wonder whether this kind of material could work in a comedy club and also what Kessler would be like doing standup. Anyway, to stay on target, let me say that Kessler does make a few good points, like the absolute idiocy of spending so much money on treatment rather than prevention/ early detection, it’s just that like a previous reviewer said, this material - sans all the vulgarity and rude language - would make a better New Yorker or Time essay piece than a book. And I remember seeing a short note in one of the “popular” magazines (i.e.,
Popular Mechanics or Popular Science) about 5 or 10 years ago, I’m tempted to try to find the exact issue date and original article, about a chip just like the ones Kessler talked about that will do early detection of cancers and all sorts of genetic predispositions, so I wonder if we’ll really see this type of stuff anytime soon. Oh well. Anyway, can you really trust a guy who says that most bank tellers lost their jobs because of ATMs, and who rejoices over any teller loosing their job (page 319)? Last time I was in a bank, I counted about four tellers, and the time before that, in a different bank, I saw about three.
I gave the book a one star rating because of the crude, rude and lewd language; otherwise, it was a two star read.
Here come the false positives . . . . .:
As a 4th year medical student and, formerly a lawyer, I am confident that Mr. Kessler is on a rabbit trail that will never pan out across the spectrum of diseases he suggests. His ideas sound wonderful, but he is missing a fundamental problem. Diagnostic tests inevitably incur false positives and false negatives, and to greatly simplify, as you improve on one, you amplify the other. So, for example, as whatever algorithm you want to concoct becomes better at predicting disease and reducing false negatives, the false positives will go up. People will be treated unnecessarily and that often is harmful. There’s a word for that-iatrogenic. This is nothing new and well-known in medical research. Thus, silicon is hardly going to displace MDs. But, it may foster lots of unnecessary and iatrogenic care that will drive the cost of medicine far beyond where it already is today. In addition, it will provide new fodder for the med mal lawyers. Truly, medicine is an art and a science.
doctor rates prognosis grim:
I read this book as part of a reading list from a friend who lectures on au courant business books. Being a physician, my interest was piqued by the medical subject matter, so I ordered it immediately. I was sorely disappointed.
I have not read any other books by this author, although I understand many others have bought his business books. I think he needs to stick to what he knows about, tech stocks. It was hard not to be offended by his recurrent comments about “making doctors obsolete”, basically by replacing us with technology. Good luck. Who wants to be the first to sign up for their appendix to be removed by a technician? Or have their PAP smear or prostate examined by a robot?
The gist of this book is that if we could just get our MRI and CT scanners more precise, we could all simply get a scan every so often, detect our physical problems before they become bigger problems, and VOILA, the healthcare crisis in America would be miraculously cured. No more pesky doctors, or uncomfortable tests, or annoying illness. Wouldn’t it be grand? Okay, so his approach was naive. I can still appreciate his outsider thinking, which is refreshing. And I think it’s helpful to have people asking questions, pushing boundaries. I think it is readily apparent from this book that Mr. Kessler is a profit motivated entrepreneurial type. That’s great for making technological advances in medicine, but don’t ever think that people are going to want to turn the care of their bodies over to people whose focus is solely on profit. (Is that who you want to take care of your mother, Mr. Kessler?)
One more thing. I hate to sound like a prude, but it was difficult for me to get past all the crude language and sex jokes. Is this what passes for professional journalism? There were enough f-bombs in here to flatten Baghdad! It’s not like I don’t hear this kind of talk at work, but it’s not something I admire or respect, or want pay money to read!
Easy read:
I liked this book. It was an easy to read book and shows how complex and messed up the health care system is. It definatly helps to show we spend a lot more trying to fix problems than trying to prevent them in the first place. I would recommend this book for those trying to get a glimpse into a possible future.
A Must Read:
This is one of the best books I have read. It is interesting and gets more interesting the further you read it, plus it is well written and makes for enjoyable reading, laced with humor and wit.
