The Naked Surgeon

Author: Samer Nashef
Publisher: Scribe Publications
ISBN: 1925113809
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
We are not meant to touch hearts. We all have one, but most of us will never see one. The heart surgeon now has that privilege but, for centuries, the heart was out of reach even for surgeons. So when a surgeon nowadays opens up a ribcage and mends a heart, it remains something of a miracle, even if, to some, it is merely plumbing. As with plumbers, the quality of surgeons’ work varies. As with plumbers, surgeons’ opinion of their own prowess and their own attitude to risk are not always reliable. Measurement is key. We’ve had a century of effective evidence-based medicine. We’ve had barely a decade of thorough monitoring of clinical outcomes. Thanks to the ground-breaking risk modelling of pioneering surgeons like Samer Nashef, we at last know how to judge whether an operation is in a patient’s best interest, which hospital and surgeon would be best for that operation, when it might best be performed and what the exact level of risk is. We have at last made what is important in surgery measurable. But how should surgeons, and their patients, use these newfound insights? Ever since his days as a medical student, Samer Nashef has challenged the medical profession to be more open and more accurate about the success of surgical procedures, for the sake of the patients. In The Naked Surgeon, he unclothes his own profession to demonstrate to his reader (and prospective patient) many revelations, such as the paradox at the heart of the cardiac surgeon’s craft: the more an operation is likely to kill you, the better it is for you. And he does so with absolute clarity, fluency and not a little wit. PRAISE FOR SAMER NASHEF ‘[The Naked Surgeon] takes a Malcolm Gladwell-esque look at what happens in operating theatres … If a book-length examination of the topic sounds dry, it isn't. Nashef’s humanity and compassion shine through.’ The Times ‘One can't help but think of Henry Marsh when reading Samer Nashef … Nashef does a fine job of guiding the reader though the surgical and statistical intricacies and he writes clearly, with plentiful moments of humour.’ The Independent

The Angina Monologues

Author: Samer Nashef
Publisher: Scribe Us
ISBN: 9781947534896
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
A pioneering cardiac surgeon expertly sews up the heart of surgery. The Angina Monologues speeds from the transporting of a donor's heart up the highway's shoulder, to cautionary stories of excessive intervention gone awry in US hospitals, to a traumatic trip to bring advanced cardiac surgery to the Palestinian West Bank. Nashef tells heartstopping stories of transplants, coronary artery bypasses, aorta repair, and cardiac arrest. He also delivers humane advice about medical realities rarely observed: the futility of obsessing over diet, the necessity of calculating risks, the role of decision making, and the resilience of doctor and patient alike. Nashef is a magnificently warm and likeable doctor and writer; and he has the best imaginable bedside manner.

Mortal Lessons

Author: Richard Selzer
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 054754233X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
A surgeon shares true stories of life, death, and the human body in an essay collection that “will nail you to your chair” (Saturday Review). With settings ranging from the operating theater to a Korean ambulance, and topics as varied as the disposition of a corpse and the author’s own childhood, these nineteen captivating, wry, and intimate vignettes offer a poignant examination of health, humanity, and, of course, mortality. Sometimes tragic, sometimes humorous, the essays offer a physician’s viewpoint that goes beyond the medical to also consider the most meaningful issues and questions we face, whether as doctors or patients, cared for or caregiver. Praised by Kirkus Reviews as “an impressive display of knowledge and art, magic and mystery,” Mortal Lessons is a classic reflection on the human body and the human experience, and will resonate with readers for generations to come.

King of Hearts

Author: G. Wayne Miller
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 0609807242
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Few of the great stories of medicine are as palpably dramatic as the invention of open-heart surgery, yet, until now, no journalist has ever brought all of the thrilling specifics of this triumph to life. This is the story of the surgeon many call the father of open-heart surgery, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, who, along with colleagues at University Hospital in Minneapolis and a small band of pioneers elsewhere, accomplished what many experts considered to be an impossible feat: He opened the heart, repaired fatal defects, and made the miraculous routine. Acclaimed author G. Wayne Miller draws on archival research and exclusive interviews with Lillehei and legendary pioneers such as Michael DeBakey and Christiaan Barnard, taking readers into the lives of these doctors and their patients as they progress toward their landmark achievement. In the tradition of works by Richard Rhodes and Tracy Kidder, King of Hearts tells the story of an important and gripping piece of forgotten science history.

The Naked Truth about Breast Implants

Author: Susan Kolb
Publisher: Lone Oak Publishing
ISBN: 9781935079293
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
Kolb has treated thousands of women with complications from breast implant surgery. She routinely incorporates state of the art surgical technology with holistic medicine and spiritual healing.

What Does Your Doctor Look Like Naked?

Author: J. Warren Willey
Publisher: Tate Publishing & Enterprises
ISBN: 9781604628784
Category : Nutrition
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Are you carrying around extra weight? Are you starving yourself, literally, only to see the numbers on the scale grow larger? What Does Your Doctor Look Like Naked?, by Dr. Warren Willey, is a witty and informative resource for the perpetual dieter that is sure to be the last book purchased on slimming down and toning up. By following Dr. Willey's all-natural eating menu and a comprehensive workout plan, starved dieters will find nourishment and watch their bodies transform before their very eyes. Going on vacation soon and not sure about splurging? Concerned about extra holiday calories? With Dr. Willey, dieters will learn to eat smart and enjoy themselves on special occasions without guilt and apprehension. Don't fall for diet gimmicks or surefire weight-loss plans that only lead to dead ends. Travel the road with Dr. Willey and the countless others who have found success in What Does Your Doctor Look Like Naked? Your Guide to Optimal Health.

Naked to the Bone

Author: Bettyann Kevles
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813523583
Category : Diagnostic imaging
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Book Description
By the late 1960s, the computer and television were linked to produce medical images that were as startling as Roentgen's original X-rays. Computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic reasonance imaging (MRI) made it possible to picture soft tissues invisible to ordinary X-rays. Ultrasound allowed expectant parents to see their unborn children. Positron emission tomography (PET) enabled neuroscientists to map the brain. In this lively history of medical imaging, the first to cover the full scope of the field from X-rays to MRI-assisted surgery, Bettyann Kevles explores the consequences of these developments for medicine and society. Through lucid prose, vivid anecdotes, and more than seventy striking illustrations, she shows how medical imaging has transformed the practice of medicine - from pediatrics to dentistry, neurosurgery to geriatrics, gynecology to oncology. Beyond medicine, Kevles describes how X-rays and the newer technologies have become part of the texture of modern life and culture. They helped undermine Victorian sexual sensibilities, gave courts new forensic tools, provided plots for novels and movies, and offered artists from Picasso to Warhol new ways to depict the human form.

The Butchering Art

Author: Lindsey Fitzharris
Publisher: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374715483
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Winner, 2018 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Short-listed for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize A Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2017, Publishers Weekly A Best History Book of 2017, The Guardian "Warning: She spares no detail!" —Erik Larson, bestselling author of Dead Wake In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery and shows how it was transformed by advances made in germ theory and antiseptics between 1860 and 1875. She conjures up early operating theaters—no place for the squeamish—and surgeons, who, working before anesthesia, were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than patients’ afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn’t have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the riddle and change the course of history. Fitzharris dramatically reconstructs Lister’s career path to his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection and could be countered by a sterilizing agent applied to wounds. She introduces us to Lister’s contemporaries—some of them brilliant, some outright criminal—and leads us through the grimy schools and squalid hospitals where they learned their art, the dead houses where they studied, and the cemeteries they ransacked for cadavers. Eerie and illuminating, The Butchering Art celebrates the triumph of a visionary surgeon whose quest to unite science and medicine delivered us into the modern world.

Confessions of a Plastic Surgeon

Author: Thomas T. Jeneby
Publisher: Atkins & Greenspan Writing
ISBN: 9781945875373
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
You are about enter the wild and wonderful world of one of San Antonio's most respected and beloved board-certified plastic surgeons. He takes you behind the scenes of his successful practice and tells all, especially the "stuff" nobody tells medical school residents when they decide to go into plastic surgery! Get ready for your jaw to drop as you follow Dr. Jeneby... - from the sanctuary of his on-site OR doing a pre-dawn breast augmentation with his signature adjustable implants; (Ladies, you'll thank him when you get to go as big as you want--gradually, because you're gonna be sore enough after your surgery!) - to his fast-paced consults where he sizes up a potential patient's mental health because he's not just going to give you want you want until he knows you know what you're getting yourself into; (Guys, you may think you want a penis enlargement, but maybe you really just need a little affirmation) -through the moment-by-moment maze of managing his women-only staff...and so much more! You'll learn how he's dedicated to giving to charity and prefers to use the gift of his hands to restore victims of domestic violence back to themselves. You'll also hear from some of his raving fans, whose lives have been transformed because of Dr. Jeneby. Get ready to have your world rocked!

Open Heart

Author: Stephen Westaby
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465094848
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
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.