Books like Knife's Edge by Stephen Westaby

Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s poignant memoir chronicles his battle with stage IV metastatic lung cancer and his reflections on life, medicine, and mortality.

A sweeping, family‑centered saga of twin brothers and their father, set against medical practice and the ethical questions of a New York physician.

286 pages : 24 cm

“我经手过12000颗心脏。”作者在心外科暨胸外科从业数十年，手术成绩卓著。本书即汇集了作者经历的一些经典案例（多数发生在1970年代至2000年代之间），也剖白了作者的心路历程。 工薪家庭的穷小子，被幼年时的医学纪录片鼓舞，也被亲人的离世刺痛，终于将自己历练成一名杰出的心外科医生。他为面试的成功而激动地徜徉在伦敦河岸街头，为先天心脏病或气道重度灼伤的小儿开胸，为病人和家属的焦灼与渴望而奋战，为对抗次日手术的焦虑而深入沙特沙漠欣赏夜空，为尽力修补而果断切削垂危的心脏，为救命而与医务主任对抗、“擅自”为病人安装人工的“电池”心，在命悬一线的攻坚手术面前还能讲出冷笑话……一位艺业精湛、傲气十足又敬畏生命的外科医生形象跃然纸上。那些十几年甚至几十年前就存在的顶尖外科技术也令读者叹为观止。 在展现心胸外科手术的神乎其技之余，作者也借病症、病患和自己的业务游历，揭示了人世百态，介绍了世界各地的风物文化，展现了一名外科医生眼中所见的悲伤与爱，以及对医疗制度、伦理和医学教育的反思，令读者收获很多感触和启发，是一部兼具叙事魅力、医学知识和奇迹的佳作。

"Surgeon Arnold Van de Laar uses his own experience and expertise to tell this engrossing history of surgery through 28 famous operations - from Louis XIV to JFK, and from Einstein to Houdini. From the story of the desperate man from seventeenth-century Amsterdam who grimly cut a stone out of his own bladder to Bob Marley's deadly toe, Under the Knife offers all kinds of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating theater. What happens during an operation? How does the human body respond to being attacked by a knife, a bacterium, a cancer cell or a bullet? And, as medical advances continuously push the boundaries of what medicine can cure, what are the limits of surgery? From the dark centuries of bloodletting and of amputations without anaesthetic to today's sterile, high-tech operating theatres, Under the Knife is both a rich cultural history, and a modern anatomy class for us all"--

A vivid exploration of human biology, showing how our body’s complex anatomy, chemistry, and physiology underpin the evolution from Homo to the modern human spirit.

A veteran Oxford heart surgeon imparts the hard-won lessons of a life lived on the brink, sharing the stories of remarkable cases from his career while revealing why heart procedures have never become routine.