Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs

Author: Dr. Michael J. Collins
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429923504
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Book Description
It looked for a while like Michael Collins would spend his life breaking concrete and throwing rocks for the Vittorio Scalese Construction Company. He liked the work and he liked the pay. But a chance remark by one of his coworkers made him realize that he wanted to involve himself in something bigger, something more meaningful than crushing rocks and drinking beer. In his acclaimed first memoir, Hot Lights, Cold Steel, Collins wrote passionately about his four-year surgical residency at the prestigious Mayo Clinic. Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs turns back the clock, taking readers from his days as a construction worker to his entry into medical school, expertly infusing his journey to become a doctor with humanity, compassion and humor. From the first time he delivers a baby to being surrounded by death and pain on a daily basis, Collins compellingly writes about how medicine makes him confront, in a very deep and personal way, the nature of God and suffering—and how delicate life can be.

Hot Lights, Cold Steel

Author: Michael J. Collins
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429903074
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Book Description
“An orthopedic surgeon’s down-to-earth, fast-paced, and frequently funny memoir of his residency [told] with a born storyteller’s skill.” —Kirkus Reviews Michael Collins’ account of his four-year surgical residency at the famed Mayo Clinic traces his rise from an eager but clueless first-year resident navigating chaos and feelings of inadequacy to accomplished Chief Resident in his final year. With unparalleled humor, he recounts the disparity between people’s perceptions of a doctor’s glamorous life and the real thing: a succession of rundown cars towed to the junk yard, long weekends moonlighting at rural hospitals, a family that grows larger every year, and a laughable income. Collins’ good nature helps him over some of the rough spots—but cannot spare him the harsh realities and heart-wrenching decisions of a doctor’s life. A teenager’s leg is mangled by a tractor: risk the boy’s life to save his leg, or amputate immediately? A woman diagnosed with bone cancer injures her hip: should he recommend a painful operation even though she has only months to live? Unflinching and deeply engaging, Hot Lights, Cold Steel captures the author’s struggles to reconcile his idealism and desire to heal with the recognition of his own limitations and imperfections. “Collins’ life as a surgical resident is heartbreaking one minute and triumphant the next. You’ll laugh and cry and cheer.” —Augusten Burroughs, New York Times–bestselling author of Dry “At once darkly humorous and truly compassionate. Not since House of God has there been such a ferociously funny look at the world of hospital medicine.” —Michael Palmer, New York Times–bestselling author of The Last Surgeon “I adore this book.” —Tess Gerritsen, New York Times–bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles novels

All Bleeding Stops

Author: Michael J Collins
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1525598406
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
What does a doctor do when he thinks his best is not good enough? Matthew Barrett, thirty-one years old and fresh out of residency, is drafted and sent to Vietnam as a combat surgeon in 1967 at the heightof the Vietnam War. Compassionate and sensitive to a fault, he is determined to make a difference but quickly finds his idealism crushed by the pain, suffering, and indifference that surround him. Shamed by his inexperience and tormented by his failures, he slowly unravels. Only the love of Therese Hopkins, a nurse, keeps him from falling apart. But will their love survive the grinding horror of war? Matthew’s journey of redemption takes him from combat surgeon in Vietnam to transplant doctor in Ohio and, finally, to physician in a relief camp in Biafra, exploring how the caring and compassion that draws young people to pursue the healing arts can also sow the seeds of their own destruction, and how love may be the only thing that can finally make all bleeding stop.

Trauma

Author: James Cole
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429989173
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Book Description
In this pulse-pounding medical memoir, trauma surgeon James Cole takes readers straight into the ER, where anything can and does happen. TRAUMA is Dr. Cole's harrowing account of his life spent in the ER and on the battlegrounds, fighting to save lives. In addition to his gripping stories of treating victims of gunshot wounds, stabbings, attempted suicides, flesh-eating bacteria, car crashes, industrial accidents, murder, and war, the book also covers the years during Cole's residency training when he was faced with 120-hour work weeks, excessive sleep deprivation, and the pressures of having to manage people dying of traumatic injury, often with little support. Unlike the authors of other medical memoirs, Cole trained to be a surgeon in the military and served as a physician member of a Marine Corps reconnaissance unit, United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and on a Navy Reserve SEAL team. From treating war casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq to his experiences as a civilian trauma surgeon treating alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals, and the mentally deranged, TRAUMA is an intense look at one man's commitment to his country and to those most desperately in need of aid.

First, Do No Harm

Author: Lisa Belkin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982173394
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
“Crammed with provocative insights, raw emotion, and heartbreaking dilemmas,” (The New York Times) First, Do No Harm is a powerful examination of how life and death decisions are made at a major metropolitan hospital in Houston, as told through the stories of doctors, patients, families, and hospital administrators facing unthinkable choices. What is life worth? And when is a life worth living? Journalist Lisa Belkin examines how these questions are asked and answered over one dramatic summer at Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. In an account that is fascinating, revealing, and almost novelistic in its immediacy, Belkin takes us inside a major hospital and introduces us to the people who must make life and death decisions every day. As we walk through the hallways of the hospital we meet a young pediatrician who must decide whether to perform a risky last-ditch surgery on a teenager who has spent most of his fifteen years in a hospital; we watch as new parents battle with doctors over whether to disconnect their fragile, premature twins from the machine that keeps them breathing; we are in the operating room as a poor immigrant, paralyzed from a gunshot in the neck, is asked by doctors whether or not he wishes to stay alive; we witness the worry of a kidney specialist as he decides whether or not to transfer an uninsured baby to the county hospital down the road. We experience critical moments in the lives of these real people as Belkin explores challenging issues and questions involving medical ethics, human suffering, modern technology, legal liability, and financial reality. As medical technology advances, the choices grow more complicated. How far should we go to save a life? Who decides? And who pays?

Eric

Author: Doris Lund
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060956372
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
This is the bestselling story of Eric, a boy with leukemia who refused to give up living--as told by the person who was with him through it all, his mother. Eric was seventeen when he heard the doctor's verdict about the disease that wanted his life. At first he and his family could not believe it. Eric was the picture of everything a youth should be--a champion athlete, a splendid human being, vibrant with energy and loved by all who knew him. The doctors could promise little. They would do as much as was medically possible. Eric had to do as much as was humanly possible. But if the odds were not good, they were good enough for Eric. Given the choice between life and death, Eric chose to live.

Mercy

Author: Julie Garwood
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471104311
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 454

Book Description
Attorney Theo Buchanan - brother of seasoned FBI agent Nick Buchanan, the hero of HEARTBREAKER - is in New Orleans to receive an award for his work with the Department of Justice. When he becomes unexpectedly ill at the gala, a beautiful stranger rushes him to the hospital and saves his life. The woman - a brilliant surgeon named Michelle Renard - intrigues Theo, but before he can learn more about her, she leaves New Orleans and returns to her small clinic in Louisiana. Theo seeks her out to thank her, but finds more than he bargained for. When he arrives in the little town of Bowen, he discovers that Michelle is being followed, her house has been broken into and her clinic destroyed. Theo is in a position to return the ultimate favour. Michelle saved his life...now can he save hers?

This Will Kill You

Author: HP Newquist
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312540623
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
Revealing the intriguing facts behind the many ways humans bite the dust, "This Will Kill You" is a thoroughly researched and illustrated--not to mention hilarious--book that offers a unique peek under the Grim Reaper's robe.

Blue Water, White Water

Author: Robert C. Samuels
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780984019403
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Book Description
Without self-pity, former New York City newspaperman and prize-winning magazine editor, Robert C. Samuels tells his own harrowing story of medical survival. He's filled it with tears, humor, love and triumph. "Audacious, brilliantly written, Blue Water, White Water, is a rare, first-person look at a world that is often closed to the average person. It is well worth your time," raves an early critic. "A riveting, vivid story!" Jan Dye Gussow, author of Growing Older: A Chronicle of Death, Life, and Vegetables. "Producers will pounce. This book IS a movie!" Carolyn Fox, Entertainment News Calendar. "Should be required reading for all medical and nursing students! A must read!" Nursing Professor Barbara Riso, R.N. "Wow! Written with an amazing ability to portray a true, horrific story that keeps readers glued to the page and laughing at the same time," Peggy Whalen, R.N. "A powerful description of genuine helplessness," Tyler Lucas, M.D.

Arms Wide Open

Author: Patricia Harman
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807001716
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
The author of The Blue Cotton Gown recounts living free and naturally against all odds—and discovering her true calling as a midwife—in this deeply moving memoir In her first, highly praised memoir, Patricia Harman told us the stories patients brought into her exam room, and her own story of struggling to help women as a nurse-midwife in medical practice with her husband—an OB/GYN—in Appalachia. Now, Patsy reaches back to the 1960s and 1970s, recounting how she learned to deliver babies and her youthful experiments with living a fully sustainable, natural life. Drawing heavily on her journals, Arms Wide Open goes back to a time of counter-culture idealism that the boomer generation remembers well. Patsy opens with stories of living in the wilds of Minnesota in a log cabin she and her lover build with their own hands, the only running water being the nearby streams. They set up beehives and give chase to a bear competing for the honey. Patsy gives birth and learns to help her friends deliver as naturally as possible. Weary of the cold and isolation, Patsy moves to a commune in West Virginia, where she becomes a self-taught midwife delivering babies in cabins and homes. Her stories sparkle with drama and intensity, but she wants to help more women than healthy hippie homesteaders. After a ten-year sojourn for professional training, Patsy and her husband return to Appalachia, where they set up a women's health practice. They deliver babies together—this time in hospitals—and care for a wide variety of gyn patients. They live in a lakeside contemporary home, though their hearts are still firmly implanted in nature. The obstetrical climate is changing. The Harmans' family is changing. The earth is changing—but Patsy's arms remain wide open to life and all it offers. Her memoir of living free and sustainably against all odds will be especially embraced by anyone who lived through the Vietnam War and commune era, and all those involved in the back-to-nature and natural-childbirth movements.