Air Particle Measurement

Neurosurgery is an arrogant occupation. Physicists might distill Creation into a few differential equations and biologists see life's wonders in a DNA helix, but only the neurosurgeon actually touches the fleshy incarnation of nature's greatest mystery: the human mind. This book chronicles one man's evolution from a naive and ambitious young intern into a member of this singular breed of doctor.

Amazon Sales Rank: #965917 in Books Published on: 1996-01 Original language: English Number of items: 1 Binding: Hardcover 268 pages

Amazon.com Review For the patient, an operation is a single defining moment. For the neurosurgeon, each moment in the operating room represents the culmination of decades spent struggling to learn an unforgiving craft. When these two join there is drama, often too much of it. This book tells the story of Frank Vertosick's metamorphosis from naive intern to neurosurgeon through intimate portraits of his patients and nerve-jangling descriptions of surgical procedures. Riveting, poignant, and sometimes shockingly funny, When the Air Hits Your Brain is a remarkable account of the mysteries of the mind and the operating room. From Publishers Weekly Instead of offering a collection of bizarre medical cases, brain surgeon Vertosick presents a set of harrowing clinical tales that highlight neurosurgery as risky, messy and often frustrating. The result is a riveting report that shatters the mystique of the brain surgeon as a wizard of technical prowess. Many of the patients profiled here die-an outcome not representative of neurosurgery at large, the author reassures us. The cases are drawn from Vertosick's six years of internship and residency. Among the most memorable are Andy, a Down's syndrome sufferer with multiple head and neck abnormalities who chose euthanasia over a life imprisoned in bed. We also meet Sarah, a pregnant homemaker with a malignant brain tumor who refuses radiotherapy and a therapeutic abortion. Vertosick is associate chief of neurosurgery at Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Vertosick's is not the usual how-I-got-through-my-residency-and-aren't-I-smart? account. Rather, Vertosick shows how a steelworker--himself--successfully became a neurosurgeon. He includes the events that shaped his feelings and emotions and his growing knowledge of himself, his patients, and his colleagues, and the fact that some of those incidents seem outwardly minor indicates that Vertosick is a perceptive individual capable of seeing the humanity of both his patients and himself. So his account of his three months in London emphasizes his ability to recognize that there are more aspects to his specialty than just the high-tech ones. And what does such a specialist typically do? Vertosick points out that two-thirds of neurosurgical operations are for the alleviation or control of pain. The neurosurgeon must always assume pain is organic, although this neurosurgeon neatly draws the distinctions between pain and suffering. An engaging and refreshing book. William Beatty

Most helpful customer reviews 10 of 11 people found the following review helpful. The training of a Neurosurgeon By E. A. Lovitt The 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 a very 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 unputdownable read. I've been through it twice now---once during a night where I couldn't sleep anyway. 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." A baby's brain is very hard to operate on: "At six weeks of age, the unmyelinated brain is thick soup which can be inadvertently vacuumed away by operative suctions. Moreover, nerves the thickness of pencil lead in adults are little more than a spider's web in a baby."Dr. Vertosick doesn't spend the whole book wisecracking. He ends the chapter on Rebecca: "I am not particularly religious. In fact, the birth of children bearing cancers I find difficult to reconcile with a merciful God. Nevertheless, there must be someplace where Rebecca now laughs in the bright sunshine, finally free of her ventilator and gastrostomy."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.I'm in the process of donating all of my books to the library that I know I won't read again. "When the Air Hits Your Brain" is not one of the donations. 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. The best medical story I have read---And I've read numerous By A Customer A compelling story of a physician's journey to become a neurosurgeon. I was engaged after the first paragraph, and had a hard time putting the book down thereafter. Vertosick's style is fluent, straightforward, and without the literary flare that so often clouds books. Within the two days that it took to read this book, I became medical student, patient and neurosurgeon. This was an experience that I shall remember 'til I die. 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. A nuerosurgeon's experiences; very interesting and readable By A Customer The author says the first rule of neurosurgey is "You're never the same once the air hits your brain."Full of the type of dark humor you would expect from medical profesisonals, this book chronicles the experiences of a neurosurgeonfrom his days as a medical student to his present day practice in Pittsburg. It is very well-written and is intended for the layman (my guess is that fans of the TV show "ER" would love this book).But be warned, emotionally it is a very hard book to read. Take for example the story of the woman who is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor while early in a pregancy. The author's story of her fight to livejust