Download or read book The Last Surgeon written by Michael Palmer and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-12-28 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Palmer's latest novel pits a flawed doctor against a ruthless psychopath, who has made murder his art form.

Download or read book The Last Surgeon written by Michael Palmer and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-12-28 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Palmer's latest novel pits a flawed doctor against a ruthless psychopath, who has made murder his art form.

Download or read book The Last Surgeon written by Michael Palmer and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author and master of medical suspense delivers another shocker of a thriller filled with insider details and a terrifying psychopath Four murders. Three accidents. Two suicides. One left… THE LAST SURGEON Michael Palmer’s latest novel pits a flawed doctor against a ruthless psychopath, who has made murder his art form. Dr. Nick Garrity, a vet suffering from PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder—spends his days and nights dispensing medical treatment from a mobile clinic to the homeless and disenfranchised in D.C. and Baltimore. In addition, he is constantly on the lookout for his war buddy Umberto Vasquez, who was plucked from the streets by the military four years ago for a secret mission and has not been seen since. Psych nurse Gillian Coates wants to find her sister’s killer. She does not believe that Belle Coates, an ICU nurse, took her own life, even though every bit of evidence indicates that she did—every bit save one. Belle has left Gillian a subtle clue that connects her with Nick Garrity. Together, Nick and Gillian determine that one-by-one, each of those in the operating room for a fatally botched case is dying. Their discoveries pit them against genius Franz Koller--the highly-paid master of the “non-kill”—the art of murder that does not look like murder. As Doctor and nurse move closer to finding the terrifying secret behind these killings, Koller has been given a new directive: his mission will not be complete until Gillian Coates and Garrity, the last surgeon, are dead.

Download or read book The Last Surgeon written by Michael Palmer and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-02-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author and master of medical suspense delivers another shocker of a thriller filled with insider details and a terrifying psychopath Four murders. Three accidents. Two suicides. One left... THE LAST SURGEON Michael Palmer's latest novel pits a flawed doctor against a ruthless psychopath, who has made murder his art form. Dr. Nick Garrity, a vet suffering from PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder—spends his days and nights dispensing medical treatment from a mobile clinic to the homeless and disenfranchised in D.C. and Baltimore. In addition, he is constantly on the lookout for his war buddy Umberto Vasquez, who was plucked from the streets by the military four years ago for a secret mission and has not been seen since. Psych nurse Gillian Coates wants to find her sister's killer. She does not believe that Belle Coates, an ICU nurse, took her own life, even though every bit of evidence indicates that she did—every bit save one. Belle has left Gillian a subtle clue that connects her with Nick Garrity. Together, Nick and Gillian determine that one-by-one, each of those in the operating room for a fatally botched case is dying. Their discoveries pit them against genius Franz Koller--the highly-paid master of the "non-kill"—the art of murder that does not look like murder. As Doctor and nurse move closer to finding the terrifying secret behind these killings, Koller has been given a new directive: his mission will not be complete until Gillian Coates and Garrity, the last surgeon, are dead.

Download or read book When Breath Becomes Air written by Paul Kalanithi and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

Download or read book The Contract Surgeon written by Dan O'Brien and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2001 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true story of the friendship between a young doctor serving in the army during the Great Sioux War, and war chief Crazy Horse. Set in the Great Plains, this tale weaves a tapestry of time and events into the account of a single day--the last day in the life of Crazy Horse--to reveal the secrets of American history.

Download or read book Last Night in the OR written by Bud Shaw and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For readers of Henry Marsh's Do No Harm, Paul A. Ruggieri's Confessions of a Surgeon, and Atul Gawande's Better, a pioneering surgeon shares memories from a life in one of surgery’s most demanding fields The 1980s marked a revolution in the field of organ transplants, and Bud Shaw, M.D., who studied under Tom Starzl in Pittsburgh, was on the front lines. Now retired from active practice, Dr. Shaw relays gripping moments of anguish and elation, frustration and reward, despair and hope in his struggle to save patients. He reveals harshly intimate moments of his medical career: telling a patient's husband that his wife has died during surgery; struggling to complete a twenty-hour operation as mental and physical exhaustion inch closer and closer; and flying to retrieve a donor organ while the patient waits in the operating room. Within these more emotionally charged vignettes are quieter ones, too, like growing up in rural Ohio, and being awakened late at night by footsteps in the hall as his father, also a surgeon, slipped out of the house to attend to a patient in the ER. In the tradition of Mary Roach, Jerome Groopman, Eric Topol, and Atul Gawande, Last Night in the OR is an exhilarating, fast-paced, and beautifully written memoir, one that will captivate readers with its courage, intimacy, and honesty.

Download or read book The Icepick Surgeon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a New York Times bestselling author comes the gripping, untold history of science's darkest secrets, "a fascinating book [that] deserves a wide audience" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process. The Icepick Surgeon masterfully guides the reader across two thousand years of history, beginning with Cleopatra’s dark deeds in ancient Egypt. The book reveals the origins of much of modern science in the transatlantic slave trade of the 1700s, as well as Thomas Edison’s mercenary support of the electric chair and the warped logic of the spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. But the sins of science aren’t all safely buried in the past. Many of them, Kean reminds us, still affect us today. We can draw direct lines from the medical abuses of Tuskegee and Nazi Germany to current vaccine hesitancy, and connect icepick lobotomies from the 1950s to the contemporary failings of mental-health care. Kean even takes us into the future, when advanced computers and genetic engineering could unleash whole new ways to do one another wrong. Unflinching, and exhilarating to the last page, The Icepick Surgeon fuses the drama of scientific discovery with the illicit thrill of a true-crime tale. With his trademark wit and precision, Kean shows that, while science has done more good than harm in the world, rogue scientists do exist, and when we sacrifice morals for progress, we often end up with neither.

Download or read book The Last Surgeon written by Lewis Newberg and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-04-18 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Admissions written by Henry Marsh and published by Thomas Dunne Books. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Second Opinion written by Michael Palmer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-02-17 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Possessing a brilliant mind for medicine in spite of her inability to comprehend the dynamics of traditional medicine, Asperger's patient and doctor Thea Sperelakis is baffled when her siblings refuse care to their hit-and-run victim father.

Download or read book Surgery the Ultimate Placebo written by Ian Harris and published by NewSouth. This book was released on 2016-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A senior surgeon suggests that many commonly performed operations are not necessary and that any benefits they offer are a placebo. For many complaints and conditions the benefits from surgery are lower, and the risks higher, than you or your surgeon think. In this book you will see how commonly performed operations can be found to be useless or even harmful when properly evaluated. Of course no surgeon is recommending invasive surgery in bad faith, but Ian Harris argues that the evidence for the success for many common operations, including knee arthroscopies, back fusion or cardiac stenting, become current accepted practice without full examination of the evidence. The placebo effect may be real, but is it worth the recovery time, expense and discomfort?

Download or read book The Surgeon written by Tess Gerritsen and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Catherine Cordell, recovering from a brutal attack and hiding her fear behind a mask of professionalism, is the only one that can stop a psychotic killer known as "The Surgeon," due to his horrific methods of murder, before he kills again. 100,000 first printing.

Download or read book The Fifth Surgeon written by Faith Prize and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-04 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lesbian medical romance about the powerful breakthroughs we can't always see. Nadia Keating has barely started her cardiothoracic fellowship training, but she already has the archetype nailed-she's direct, uncompromising, and suffering from a God complex. Before she can focus on her impressive research, deeply closeted Nadia has a personal project: getting her inconvenient attraction to women out of her system. She picks a stranger online for a one-night stand. Ashley Rylan, the chief of Nadia's department, is her polar opposite-sweet, agreeable, and soft-spoken-and the stranger Nadia unwittingly chooses. The two women's meeting is a hostile disaster and they would love nothing more than to never see each other again. However, their paths keep colliding as Nadia embarks on an ambitious experiment that could lead to a historic medical breakthrough. Despite warring egos and the secrets they keep, their connection is powerful and growing. Maybe having sex would help them get over their distraction at work? Or would that just ruin everything?

Download or read book Blood Sweat and Tears Becoming a Better Surgeon written by Philip F. Stahel and published by tfm Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All surgeons want to be better surgeons... They work hard to be respected by their peers, appreciated by their patients, and valued by their communities. Most of the estimated 200 million surgeries performed worldwide every year go as anticipated, with positive patient outcomes. However, the number of surgical complications and preventable medical errors still remains unacceptably high. Why are experienced surgeons still creating so many adverse events? More importantly, what can surgeons do to better address the situation? Blood, Sweat and Tears — Becoming a Better Surgeon seeks to answer these questions. The book provides pragmatic examples on how good surgeons can grow from being technically brilliant to becoming empathetic and capable of providing safe, compassionate, and more effective patient care. Blood, Sweat and Tears — Becoming a Better Surgeon follows trauma surgeon Philip Stahel's 20-year journey from his 'rookie years' in internship and residency, to his development as a global patient safety advocate, renowned academician and teacher, and compassionate surgeon. The book touches on why our current patient safety protocols and checklists fail to keep patients safe and how a physician-driven initiative with credible leadership is needed to build a sustainable 'culture of patient safety.' Written for a wide audience and based on the paradigm that “good judgment comes from experience which comes from poor judgment”, Blood, Sweat and Tears — Becoming a Better Surgeon provides in-depth coverage of all the critical and timely components of safe surgical care, relates practical tips for improving the quality of partnerships between surgeons and patients, and offers a practical guide on how to reduce the learning curve to becoming a better surgeon. Reviews 1) I applaud Dr. Stahel for presenting a rich compilation of his honest and remarkable first-hand experiences and the collective work of doctors and health care leaders to reduce the endemic variation in medical quality that contributes to the #3 cause of death in the U.S. today — medical care itself. Marty Makary MD, Author of The New York Times bestseller, Unaccountable 2) “Blood, Sweat & Tears” is a great book, one of a kind, and destined to be a medical classic. What makes the book exceptional is the narrative about a difficult human endeavor, often done imperfectly, by humans who have been told they should be ‘perfect’. This quintessential paradox is why this book is a practical story about life and will likely be of interest and enjoyment to many outside the realm of medicine. Wade Smith MD, Co-founding Editor, Patient Safety in Surgery 3) Blood, Sweat & Tears: How to Become a Better Surgeon is a remarkable book that emphasizes empathy and communication, provocatively authored by a surgeon. However, as the reader will soon discover, Philip Stahel is not your ordinary surgeon. I strongly recommend every health care provider read this book. I further recommend this book be mandatory reading annually for every medical student, intern, resident and fellow-in-training, most especially chapters 3 and 4, which epitomize William Osler's advice, "Listen to the patient - he is telling you the diagnosis". In these 20 chapters, the many other insightful quotes alone are worth the purchase price. Jerome M.Buckley, MD Retired CEO/Chairman, COPIC Companies Associate Clinical Professor, University of Colorado School of Medicine 4) The life of a surgeon is difficult. Life and limb threatening problems do not necessarily occur at convenient times. Surgery is not for the weak as it requires physical strength, emotional stamina, and unquenchable intellectual curiosity. Underneath these prerequisites lies the most important of all surgical requirements: the patient. With his emphasis on patient care found through empathy, shared decision making, and attention to detail, Dr. Stahel is telling the surgeon of today and tomorrow about the way to quality improvement and self-fulfillment. The emphasis on empathy is a crucial but neglected part of quality improvement. Why do our patients so frequently not adhere to our instructions? Putting yourself in the patient's position creates an essential surgeon-patient bond that underlies an optimal outcome. Dr. Stahel did not write the golden rule of "love thy neighbor as thyself", but it is clear that he sees this as an essential part of the surgeon-patient partnership. Both surgeon and patient will feel this effect, and it will pay dividends for both parties in the near and distant future. It is an important but disturbing reflection that many medical students lose their empathetic qualities during their clerkship years. There are many reasons that underlie this loss including our role models, the frantic pace of clinical activities, and the lack of clear direction as to the medical student role. Importantly, Dr. Stahel gives us a path to finding our empathy by rediscovering our humanism. Relating to the janitor, the nurse, and other members of the care team as people is an important first step in understanding the common ground that we share with our patients. Letting each member of the surgical team call the professor by his first name clearly tells the staff that all are important and essential. Giving his phone number to his patients shows the trust that Dr. Stahel shares with those who trust him. As I reflect upon my own 35-year career in surgery, I remember the eagerness with which I first approached operating room days. "A chance to cut is a chance to cure" and "the only way to heal is with cold steel" were chants that my fellow residents and I would often repeat. The operating room was its own sanctuary away from many realities of patient care. With time, I have learned to appreciate other parts of patient care. In the clinic, I have a chance to know the patient as a person, and I have an opportunity to educate the patient as I would want to be educated. My path to becoming a better surgeon is far from over but my time to accomplish this is short. I truly wish that I had read such a book many decades ago as I began my life in surgery, but back then no such work was available. With Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Dr. Stahel has directed me to some needed tools that might help me reach this laudatory goal of ongoing quality improvement. I am most appreciative for his reflections and observations, and I remain hopeful that perhaps someday I might become a better surgeon. Ted Clarke, MD Orthopaedic Surgeon and CEO and Chairman of COPIC, Denver, Colorado 5) As a veteran Registered Nurse I feel that this book is a must read for anyone in health care! Dr. Philip Stahel has a very down to Earth writing style and compassionate approach to patient care. Reading this book has reinvigorated my love of nursing and passion for patient care. Kerry Olson, RN 6) Blood, Sweat & Tears is a unique book - clearly one of a kind, and surprisingly not just of interest to those who work in healthcare. The book has a captivating narrative flow and the medical aspects are very easy to understand for non-clinical/laypersons as well. I will be sending my "baby boomer" parents a copy as it becoming increasingly important for the community to understand the complexity and challenges of our current healthcare system. My take-home point from this book is that we can and we should be involved in our healthcare choices and ask important and pertinent questions. If you're like me, and you're interested in patient safety and eventually receiving high quality medical care if you ever become a patient, if you have a sense of humor, and you would like a different perspective on healthcare, this is the book for you! Nicole Morgan, MHA

Download or read book Cutting Remarks written by Sidney M. Schwab MD and published by Frog Books. This book was released on 2006-03-31 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A surgeon can kill you...and you'll sleep right through it." The most dramatic—and seemingly glamorous—of medical fields, surgery captivates the public's imagination. Written for inquisitive laymen as well as anyone in the medical profession, this fascinating first-person account documents the career of one of America's top surgeons. Readers accompany Sidney Schwab through medical school at Case Western Reserve University; an internship; junior and senior residencies (with a detour to Vietnam, where he won a Purple Heart); and finally his chief residency years in San Francisco. With humor and poignancy—and sometimes graphic detail—Schwab recalls memorable surgeries, surgeons, and patients. He takes care to explain, in understandable and interesting fashion, a variety of diseases, medical issues, and surgical techniques. More than just a memoir, Cutting Remarks offers a compelling look at how trauma and surgery are handled at a major hospital, and provides valuable insight into a surgeon's relationship with both peers and patients.

Download or read book The Cost of Cutting written by Paul A. Ruggieri M.D. and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is surgery so expensive? Surgeon Paul A. Ruggieri reveals little-known truths about his profession—and the hidden flaws of our healthcare system—in this compelling and troubling account of real patients, real doctors, and how money influences medical decisions behind the scenes. Even many well-informed patients have no idea what may be contributing to the cost of their surgery. With up-to-date research and stories from his practice, Ruggieri shows how business arrangements among hospitals, insurance companies, and surgeons affect who gets treatment—and whether they get the right treatment. Pulling back the curtain from the hospital bed, he explains how to safeguard one’s own health (and finances), and how America can make surgery more affordable for all without sacrificing quality care.