A Surgeon's Lifetime
A Surgeon's Lifetime

Author: David Watkin

Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd

Published: 2023-10-28

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1805147005

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‘See one, do one, teach one’ was the basis of David Watkin’s training as a surgeon in the 1960s. By the time he became a consultant, he had ample experience but had received little supervision. He was determined to improve the experience for his juniors. Later, this led to chairmanship of the national committee responsible for training in general surgery. Not from a medical family and with no experience of serious illness or hospital, David had only decided to study medicine when in the sixth form. After training in Bristol, Leicester, Derby and Sheffield he was appointed a consultant in Leicester. He was then invited to be inaugural clinical sub-dean, in charge of setting up clinical teaching in the new Medical School. Comprising ‘guts, glands and arteries’, David relished the broad scope of general surgery, including emergencies. But surgery and the NHS were changing, with technological advances and surgical innovations. When general surgery evolved into specialties, he became a coloproctologist by day, though still a generalist at night. A member of the council of the Association of Surgeons, he was closely involved in these changes. Finally, he was elected president of the Association for 2000-1.

Admissions
Admissions

Author: Henry Marsh

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1250127270

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The 2017 National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Finalist, International Bestseller, and a Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of 2017! “Marsh has retired, which means he’s taking a thorough inventory of his life. His reflections and recollections make Admissions an even more introspective memoir than his first, if such a thing is possible.” —The New York Times "Consistently entertaining...Honesty is abundantly apparent here--a quality as rare and commendable in elite surgeons as one suspects it is in memoirists." —The Guardian "Disarmingly frank storytelling...his reflections on death and dying equal those in Atul Gawande's excellent Being Mortal." —The Economist Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times bestseller Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions he describes the difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine. Marsh also faces up to the burden of responsibility that can come with trying to reduce human suffering. Unearthing memories of his early days as a medical student, and the experiences that shaped him as a young surgeon, he explores the difficulties of a profession that deals in probabilities rather than certainties, and where the overwhelming urge to prolong life can come at a tragic cost for patients and those who love them. Reflecting on what forty years of handling the human brain has taught him, Marsh finds a different purpose in life as he approaches the end of his professional career and a fresh understanding of what matters to us all in the end.

Open Heart
Open Heart

Author: Stephen Westaby

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2017-06-20

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0465094848

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In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be. With astonishing compassion, he recounts harrowing and sometimes hopeful stories from his operating room: we meet a pulseless man who lives with an electric heart pump, an expecting mother who refuses surgery unless the doctors let her pregnancy reach full term, and a baby who gets a heart transplant-only to die once it's in place. For readers of Atul Gawande's Being Mortal and of Henry Marsh's Do No Harm, Open Heart offers a soul-baring account of a life spent in constant confrontation with death.

Harvey Cushing
Harvey Cushing

Author: Michael Bliss

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 638

ISBN-13: 0195329619

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Drawing on new collections of intimate personal and family papers, diaries and patient records, Michael Bliss captures Cushings professional and his personal life in remarkable detail. Bliss paints an engaging portrait of a man of ambition, boundless, driving energy, a fanatical work ethic, a penchant for self-promotion and ruthlessness, more than a touch of egotism and meanness, and an enormous appetite for life. Equally important, Bliss traces the rise of American surgery as seen through the eyes of one of its pioneers. The book describes how Cushing, working in the early years of the 20th century, developed remarkable new techniques that let surgeons open the skull, expose the brain, and attack tumors--all with a much higher rate of success than previously known.

The Checklist Manifesto
The Checklist Manifesto

Author: Atul Gawande

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2010-04-01

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1429953381

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The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third. In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds. An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.

Do No Harm
Do No Harm

Author: Henry Marsh

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2015-05-26

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1466872802

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A New York Times Bestseller Shortlisted for both the Guardian First Book Prize and the Costa Book Award Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction A Finalist for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize A Finalist for the Wellcome Book Prize A Financial Times Best Book of the Year An Economist Best Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year What is it like to be a brain surgeon? How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands, to cut into the stuff that creates thought, feeling, and reason? How do you live with the consequences of performing a potentially lifesaving operation when it all goes wrong? In neurosurgery, more than in any other branch of medicine, the doctor's oath to "do no harm" holds a bitter irony. Operations on the brain carry grave risks. Every day, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh must make agonizing decisions, often in the face of great urgency and uncertainty. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached doctors, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again. With astonishing compassion and candor, Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. Do No Harm provides unforgettable insight into the countless human dramas that take place in a busy modern hospital. Above all, it is a lesson in the need for hope when faced with life's most difficult decisions.

Life on a Knife’s Edge
Life on a Knife’s Edge

Author: Rahul Jandial

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2021-06-03

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0241461855

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'It's a brilliant book... There are lessons in every paragraph... Get it now.' Chris Evans 'Wonderous and wild. I loved this book' James Nestor, bestselling author of Breath 'Moving, raw and unflinching' Julia Samuel, bestselling author of This Too Shall Pass 'Incredible storytelling' Dr Rangan Chatterjee, bestselling author of Feel Better in 5 ____________________________________________________________________________ How do you carry on when things go deadly wrong? When Dr Rahul Jandial operated on Karina, an eleven-year-old girl whose spinal cord was splitting in two, he had to make an impossible decision. He followed his head over his gut and Karina was left permanently paralysed, altering both patient and surgeon's lives for ever. This decision would haunt Rahul for decades, a constant reminder of the fine line between saving and damaging a life. As one of the world's leading brain surgeons, Rahul is the last hope for patients with extreme forms of cancer. In treating them, he has observed humanity at its most raw and most robust. He has journeyed to unimaginable extremes with them, guiding them through the darkest moments of their lives. Life on a Knife's Edge is Rahul's poetic and beautifully written account of the resilience, courage and belief he has witnessed in his patients, and the lessons about human nature he has learned from them. It is about the impossible choices he has to make, and the fateful consequences he is forced to live with. From challenging the ethics of surgical practices, to helping a patient with locked-in syndrome communicate her dying wish to her family, Rahul shares his extraordinary experiences, revealing the depths of a surgeon's psyche that is continuously pushed to its limits.

Also Human
Also Human

Author: Caroline Elton

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2018-06-12

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0465093752

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A psychologist's stories of doctors who seek to help others but struggle to help themselves From ER and M*A*S*H to Grey's Anatomy and House, the medical drama endures for good reason: we're fascinated by the people we must trust when we are most vulnerable. In Also Human, vocational psychologist Caroline Elton introduces us to some of the distressed physicians who have come to her for help: doctors who face psychological challenges that threaten to destroy their careers and lives, including an obstetrician grappling with his own homosexuality, a high-achieving junior doctor who walks out of her first job within weeks of starting, and an oncology resident who faints when confronted with cancer patients. Entering a doctor's office can be terrifying, sometimes for the doctor most of all. By examining the inner lives of these professionals, Also Human offers readers insight into, and empathy for, the very real struggles of those who hold power over life and death.

Second Lives, Second Chances
Second Lives, Second Chances

Author: Donald R. Laub, M.D.

Publisher: ECW Press

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 1773053299

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The engrossing memoir of a plastic and reconstructive surgeon involved in groundbreaking and life-changing procedures Through his work in plastic and reconstructive surgery, Dr. Donald Laub changed the lives of thousands of people who had been shunned by society. Dr. Laub’s influence fostered the development of three key areas in the surgical profession: pioneering and influencing international humanitarian medical missions in the developing world, being at the forefront of gender affirmation surgery for transgender people since 1968, and the education and training of over 50 plastic and reconstructive surgeons. His unstinting efforts to surgically correct cleft palates gave new lives to thousands of children in developing countries. As one of the original surgeons to perform gender affirmation surgery, Laub not only continually improved on his methods, but he also became a tireless advocate for the rights of transgender people. His non-profit foundation (Interplast, now called ReSurge International) has sent thousands of multidisciplinary teams to perform transformative and reconstructive surgery in the developing world. Second Lives, Second Chances is more than just a memoir; it’s a testament to how the determination of one person can bring others together to make a lasting difference in the world.