Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon’s First Years
Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a General practitioner’s First Years Books
Product Description
This tale of Collins’ four-year surgical residency traces his rise from an keen but clueless first-year resident to accomplished Chief Resident in his final year. With unparalleled humor, he recounts the disparity between people’s perceptions of a doctor’s glamorous life and the real thing: a succession of run down cars that are towed to the junk yard, long weekends moonlighting at rural hospitals, a family that grows larger every year, and a laughable income.
Collins’ excellent nature helps him over some of the rough spots but cannot emergency him the harsh reality of a doctor’s life. Every day he is confronted with decisions that will exchange people’s lives-or end them-forever. A young boy’s leg is mangled by a tractor: risk the boy’s life to save his leg, or amputate immediately? A woman diagnosed with bone cancer injures her hip: go through a awkward hip operation even though she has only months to live? Like a jolt to the system, he is faced with the reality of suffering and death as he struggles to reconcile his idealism and aspiration to heal with the recognition of his own limitations and imperfections.
Unflinching and deeply engaging, Hot Lights, Cold Steel is a humane and passionate reminder that doctors are people too. This is a gripping memoir, at times devastating, others triumphant, but everlastingly compulsively readable.
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This is a attractive tale of how a young doctor at one of the most prestigious training programs in the people (Mayo Clinic) makes the transition from a novice bewildered by the coarse nature of orthopedic surgery (in his first operation he expected surgery to be about finesse, not cabinetmaking) to a seasoned doc capable of handling anything that comes in. By the side of the way we learn how docs in training are tutored in their art, about the pressures they face, and the incredible strain of the decisions they must make.
We learn how docs figure out how to distance themselves from the trauma and disease they see every day, learning to care and give but not get too close for danger of burning out. And even as Collins repeatedly refers to himself as not quite up to par with his fellow residents, this book reflects a person concerned with the issues of medicine and capable of exploring them soundly. For example, is the best treatment and who should give it? When we show up at an ER hurt and frightened we assume the cool hand we see is an experienced MD trained and ready to handle the problem, yet as Collins reveals docs in training do procedures until they become competent, then they give it over to another more junior doc. It is, as Collins points out, a reverse Peter Principle, and I don’t reckon I’m the only one who is at least a small worried by this.
Although this is a wonderful book and reveals a world normally closed to outsiders, I can’t help wondering if a part of his personality Collins shares reflects on medicine as a whole. Collins has 12 kids according to the book overleaf, and in the course of his training his wife is everlastingly pregnant. 12 kids!!! Populace size and growth affects society as a whole. If his kids follow his example, in just 2 generations (40 years) they will have given rise to 144 people and all the demands they make on our society and environment. The reason this is critical is that medicine is a profession straddling both the private and societal arenas. Docs handle us one at a time, yet as a society we need to make decisions on how much to spend on medical care as a nation, how to handle the poor without private insurance, prescription benefits, and so on. As a kid one test for moral behavior my parents taught me was “what if everyone did it?”. With 12 kids Collins seems to have planted both feet in the “I’ll do what’s in MY best interests” camp and ignores the excellent of society as a whole. If this self-interest reflects on the attitudes held by his fellow practitioners, we all face a larger problem than we know.
Rating: 5 / 5
The author did a excellent job maintenance our interest and it was very believable.
My 89 year ancient mother loved it, as did my spouse and I.
I highly urge it. It’s nice to know that non-fiction can keep your interest.
Rating: 4 / 5
I read excerpt of this book in Reader’s Digest and just may possibly not wait for the release.I loved reading this book and I would urge everyone to read this. I believed every bit as it sure feels it has come from his heart.Link of medical terms was not registering, otherwise it is a plain simple and fantastic reading.But one thing I want to mention that although I loved reading the book, I was a bit disappointed at the end. I was hoping the author would mention atleast one incident where it was sheer miracle. Like in the case of the 40 week pregnant women,where the mother and the child dies after a lot of effort, I hoped they will survive. And then in case of the small boy who was hit by a drunkard, I hoped he will survive. I have heard of miracles in medical science (not sure though if it really happens).
Rating: 5 / 5
One of the best reads…..you wont’ want to place it down. Found myselfing laughing out loud!
Rating: 5 / 5
As a young person aspiring to be a physician this was an awesome book. I ercommend to anyone who wants to get a better understandning of what it takes to become a physician. It was a fantastic behind the scenes memoir of what docto’s go through. It was also humorious and kept my attention.
Rating: 5 / 5