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When the Air Hits Your Brain
- Tales from Neurosurgery
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Professionals & Academics
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Following in the wake of hugely successful medical memoirs such as Do No Harm and Fragile Lives, Critical is an intelligent, compelling and profoundly insightful journey into the world of intensive care medicine and the lives of people who have forever been changed by it.
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Nothing short of inspiring
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Beautifully read, refreshingly honest, touchingly humane and always engaging.
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My GP has become my hero
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Beautifully read, refreshingly honest, touchingly humane and always engaging.
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more than a surgical story
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Great medical stories
- By Benjamin on 18-02-2017
Publisher's Summary
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.
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What listeners say about When the Air Hits Your Brain
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Elizabeth McDonagh
- 09-09-2021
Interesting
Good book, very different and sometimes tough to get through but overall I enjoyed it.
1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 21-04-2018
must listen!
loved every minute! some times sad and thoughtful, other times funny. very interesting book! awesome career
1 person found this helpful
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- Paul
- 17-04-2018
A compelling view into the neurosurgeon's world.
Would you consider the audio edition of When the Air Hits Your Brain to be better than the print version?
I haven not read the printed edition.
What was one of the most memorable moments of When the Air Hits Your Brain?
To get a glimpse into the moral, ethical and emotional struggles the author faces in his moments of failure gives one an insight into what attributes a really good practitioner must possess. It’s not his dexterity of hand, his brilliance in diagnosis or his recall of medical learning or case lore, but rather, his contrapuntal ability to care without caring too much.
What does Kirby Heyborne bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
I have not read the printed edition. However, Mr Heyborne reads the book with sensitivity and an obvious understanding of the underlying material (not the technical stuff - I mean the author's feelings). I only have one slight reservation about the reading - the attempt at performing various accents. I think if one cannot nail a New York or posh English accent, it’s probably better to leave it to the hearer’s imagination (as it is when one reads a book).
Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
In the instances where the outcome is unfavourable, the stories evoke a visceral response which flows in two tributaries from each case narrative: one is the empathy one feels for the doctor with his internal struggles, and the other for the suffering and heartache the patients and their loved ones must endure. Where the outcome is positive, especially when it’s unexpectedly so, it’s hard not to feel a kind on vicarious triumph in the doctor’s achievements.
Any additional comments?
The story is really well paced and has a careful balance between the details of each case and the doctor's travails in learning. I really enjoyed his ontological musings and hearing of the agony one in his profession that surely cannot be avoided.
1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 08-08-2022
Great stories and insights into neurosurgery
Colourfully written stories and insights from his younger surgical resident days, relatable and emotional content that really puts life into perspective.
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- Anonymous User
- 18-11-2021
Exactly what I was expecting
Amazing story. True to what I was expecting. Would definitely listen again. Good to know that this book uses A LOT of medical terminology, thus if you are not familiar with this type of language you may be lost at some points.
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- Anonymous User
- 11-08-2021
Fantastic Read
Fantastic read from start to finish, thanks for the experience Frank. Would highly reccomend to anyone interested in the field. 😊
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- Scott Foster
- 12-06-2021
ABSOLUTELY fantastic!! Can't fault it in any way!
What a fantastic story! Well written, well narrated and just an engrossing story all round!
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- Anonymous User
- 02-06-2021
Stick with it longer than a chapter
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.
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- Silvia Picello
- 27-04-2021
Dated but very gripping
Neurological surgery has evolved very quickly in the past two decades so many of the surgeries described would have possibly had a different outcome. Nonetheless this is a very gripping read.
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- Anonymous User
- 13-12-2020
The narrator ruins this book
Given the book is written by an esteemed neurosurgeon why have some reedy, blond haired idiot actor narrate it? There is no authenticity to this narration and ruins what is beautiful prose. Unlistenable due to the narrator.
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- Andrew
- 15-04-2017
Finished in 1 and 1/2 days
One of the best medical books written, imho. Empathetic, yet aware of irreconcilable errors. Funny and honest. I'm not sure I would ever want to go to him or someone trained by him in an ethically complex situation, but if my treatment only required skill and someone I could laugh with and relate to before I could be healed, I would go to him without hesitation.
64 people found this helpful
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- Largactil
- 03-02-2017
Sensitive and Enlightening
I appreciate the respectful and sensitive way the author, a neurosurgeon, talks about the patients who were a big part of his training and practice. I appreciate the enlightening level of detail about the procedures and customs that create doctors, good patient outcomes, and poor patient outcomes. I highly recommend this book.
59 people found this helpful
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- Wendy Glosser
- 19-12-2016
Amazing!
Im an RN and learned so much from this but enjoyed most the victories achieved! I never wanted to put it down!
40 people found this helpful
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- Aksana
- 03-03-2017
How a neurosurgeon deals with issues of the Brain and Heart
Whether good timing or destiny brought Dr. Vertosick into the field of neurosurgery, this book promises an explanation of the birth and evolution of a doctor who ends up in the right place. If doctors have a "calling" to their profession, it is most certainly demonstrated in this story.
Neurosurgeons may appear to be blunt, unapologetic superheroes (as they are better with matters of the brain, rather than the heart), but these professionals rise to the top of their fields , sparing no emotions, especially their own, to give people everything. Putting excessive emotions in the back seat is a part of caring for the patient who is a less than a millimeter away from death during an operation. Pushing the boundaries of what it is means to be alive, dead and human , they play with the most valuable organ in the human body hoping to preserve and salvage what it means to be human.
This book lifts away the blanket of mysticism that covers these heroic servants to show us that even superman fails, cries, shuts down, and breaks. I enjoyed every part of peeking over the surgeon's shoulder and into his heart.
54 people found this helpful
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- Gordon Wilson
- 18-09-2016
Absolutely Riveting!
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Absolutely. The author does a great job of not just describing the profession, but also providing perspective and insight to the science of living as well.
What did you like best about this story?
Clearly, the individual cases are fascinating. But, I really enjoyed the author's profound insights on life and death, generally.
Which scene was your favorite?
The "alzheimer's patient" with the massive brain tumor.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
No. But, it did cause me to think. And, I fear death less now.
Any additional comments?
Buy it. You'll not regret it.
55 people found this helpful
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- Atis
- 26-11-2016
Just a great book :)
Loved it, serious but with nice humor. Narrator is really good. The best I heard so far.
18 people found this helpful
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- FB
- 03-05-2017
C fifty-six? Really?!
As a physical therapist, I love a good medical story, and this is an excellent one. When the Air Hits Your Brain is interesting mix of medicine, the people who practice it, and the people they treat.
The narrator does a good job. Except - early in the book he repeatedly narrates, "C fifty-six". How did no one catch this?! There are only seven cervical vertebrae. The author was referencing the disc between the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae. As such, the narrator should have said, "C five-six". A minor quibble, and he only made a few other such errors,but I did find it a bit distracting.
46 people found this helpful
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- CMartin
- 05-12-2019
Interesting content, sexist tone
Content was extremely interesting and also at times disheartening and insulting to hear the author speak of the literal boys club that is neurosurgery.
Even in the post script it isn’t addressed that his elevation of men and the brotherhood of doctors is all fine and I am sure true. But times have changed and this book now feels outdated.
Dont waste your time when there are other books like When Breath Becomes Air and Being Mortal that are so approachable, human and modern.
8 people found this helpful
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- Sean Stagner
- 20-09-2016
Awesome story about a budding neurosurgeon
A very compelling account of the arduous life of a neurosurgical resident in training, which abounds with many poignant and touching scenes, with enough technical details that satisfies the curiosity of what they do in the OR and in the hospital.
23 people found this helpful
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- Douglas
- 22-11-2016
Joining the Ranks...
of Oliver Sacks and Richard Selzer, Vertosick renders a compelling account not only of neurology and its procedures, but also of what it is like to be a doctor in the most complicated and challenging branch of medicine. A must read.
23 people found this helpful
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- Santiago
- 22-11-2016
Good book
A collection of neurosurgery anecdotes during the author's residency programme. Well written, presents important ethical and professional challenges.
3 people found this helpful
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- Mnd
- 04-03-2021
Good but I've read better
If you've an interest in this topic, read or listen to both of Henry Marsh 's books. The narration is more enjoyable and easier to engage with and the overall material is more interesting. This is a good listen but I found the narrator quite monotone and storyline rather cold throughout I struggled to relate.
1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-01-2021
Great book
Interesting book about the life of a great person. Listened all the way through and very captivating.
1 person found this helpful
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- Rachael allen
- 09-11-2020
Great book... SHOCKING NARRATOR!!!
The narrator sounded like a robot... was basically like having Siri narrate... truly awful! Book is great but he is so jarring!
1 person found this helpful
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- JimboBeamish
- 01-09-2021
Like the medical bits of E.R
Very enjoyable and humanistic, the reading is subtle and calm, the voice you'd hope to hear inside your brain doctors head !
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- Captain Paperfox
- 23-11-2020
Absolutely gripping.
I listened to this intently, slightly unsure of what to expect as the narrator spoke the authors initial impressions of what the book wouldn't be and gave indications of name changes (which is to be expected when dealing with intimate medical procedures)... However, it was very engaging - I am glad I was able to get taken for the journey that the author has compiled based on their early career. I don't think my review can do it justice - it's a masterful mix of heart wrenching tragedy, amazing - bordering on miraculous - efforts in saving human life. You never know how each case the author meets will pan out and their narrative is too engaging - it can be nailbiting! An amazing drama - which is entirely real, save for the aforementioned name changes to protect identities. It strikes at the core of what you may consider your humanity - empathy, fear, optimism (and a touch of disgust if you're squeamish..!). Superb. I downloaded this book with the monthly token after seeing it advertised for something to listen to while I pottered about - no chance of that. I couldn't move - I was hooked and following along with the gestures and the facial expressions that the author has captured while telling their story.
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- Denise
- 22-06-2019
Brilliant
Incredibly good. Insightful, emotional, interesting and enlightening. Would read again, an absolute favourite on the first read and the second listen a few months later. I took lessons away from this book that will stay with me for life, not that it tries to cram any down your throat, but it was so honest and Vertosick’s turn of phrase is often simple and thereby impactful, that you may or may not find yourself thinking about the chapter you just read for a while. This book has made me excited to read again.
Yes, there was some cheesy sentences, but I entirely forgive it and it’s very minor and not throughout.
The narrator was great, it wasn’t a voice or performance that distracted from the book in my opinion.
I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading. This book was entirely engaging in my opinion.
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- Jo Shap
- 21-06-2019
Loved this!
Comical, serious, educational.
Written with wit, reads like a thriller - the suspense in each chapter keeps you listening.
Dr. Vertosick’s self-deprecating humour makes his stories even more engaging.
Am straight onto looking for his other books.
Thank you, Dr. for this wonderfully written book.
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- James ellard
- 17-04-2019
Brilliant!
Slow to start but picks up to be the best book i have listened to so far.
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- Justmyself
- 02-07-2018
Fabulous intriguing listen
Such a great audio book, so engaging and interesting to hear. The M.D. makes for a really good voice and such detail!
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