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When the Air Hits Your Brain

Tales from Neurosurgery

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When the Air Hits Your Brain

By: Frank T Vertosick Jr. MD
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
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About this listen

With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain - the culmination of decades spent struggling to learn an unforgiving craft - illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

©2008 Frank T. Vertosick, Jr., MD (P)2016 Tantor History & Commentary Medical Medicine & Health Care Industry Professionals & Academics Surgery Human Brain Medicine Witty Brain Surgery

Critic Reviews

"A riveting report that shatters the mystique of the brain surgeon as a wizard of technical prowess." ( Publishers Weekly)
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I loved this book so much. It's just the right amount of descriptive without the listener getting lost in medical jargon. It's funny and deep and kept me on the edge of my seat.

Absolutely!

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An excellent book giving great insight into the other side of the equation. If you are wondering what your Neuro Surgeon is actually thinking, this may give you a clue.

Insightful

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Begins in an overly dramatic way, but settles into a thoughtful narrative about the relationship between doctors and patients, and the surgical stereotype of psychopathy. A few laughs and tears inbetween. Enjoyed the narration.

Stick with it longer than a chapter

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I loved this book, especially the description of the medical psychopaths who work in this field. It truly takes nerves of steel and a fair amount of intuitive risk taking to be a neurosurgeon.

A VERY, VERY annoying mistake in the book was the constant mispronunciation of the words paraplegic and quadriplegic. The reader said para-PAL-egic and quadri-PAL-egic.

Fascinating insight into stressful profession

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Who could not NOT be drawn in by an autobiography of neurosurgeon? The narrator was great with accents but that was about all...It took me half the book to get used to his robotic monotone

Fascinating content horrible narrator

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