Rating: 
Summary: You can always make a patient worse
Review: This author has an edgy, sleep-deprived, wisecrack-a-minute style that makes me glad some states at least, have reduced the number of hours per week a medical resident must work, from one hundred to eighty. Neurosurgery is an unforgiving craft, and not all of the stories in this book have a happy ending. Neurosurgeons must tackle some pretty hopeless cases, and the human brain is a very unforgiving operating theatre.Nevertheless, "When the Air Hits Your Brain" is an exhilarating read. I've been through it twice now---once through a night when I had pretty much given up on sleep. If you do intend to sleep, don't read it right before going to bed. Here are the author's five rules for neurosurgery interns: 1. You "ain't never" the same when the air hits your brain.
2. The only minor operation is one that someone else is doing.
3. If the patient isn't dead, you can always make him worse if you try hard enough.
4. One look at the patient is better than a thousand phone calls from the nurse.
5. Operating on the wrong patient or doing the wrong side of the body makes for a very bad day--always ask the patient what side their pain is on, which leg hurts, which hand is numb. Emotionally, Dr. Vertosick's worst rotation was to the local Children's Hospital. A child who was born with an inoperable brain tumor is the focus of the chapter entitled "Rebecca." Read how the author strays into the 'inferno of overconfidence' as a chief resident, and comes "perilously close to emotional incineration." Follow him into the operating room as a patient's brain oozes through his fingers, where he is squirted in the eye by an AIDS patient's spinal fluid, and where he cures a woman who was misdiagnosed as an Alzheimer's patient when what she really had was a brain tumor. Dr. Vertosick has written another, equally interesting book, "Why We Hurt," on the 'natural history' of pain.
Rating:
Summary: Hoping my brain stays airtight!
Review: Wow. I recently reread this book, after my sister had an aneurysm burst. It's okay, she's doing very well considering. Years ago brain surgery was pretty much a death sentence, and now these people and the technology work magic.
Dr. Vertosick's stories are touching, scary and impossible. His insight, and humility, which amazes me, throughout, makes the book even better. I'm glad to read what happens, while skipping the jargon, and pleased to see that us patients do matter, even though it doesn't always seem so.
If you're particularly squeamish, it might bother you, but try to put that aside. It's too good to miss.
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