Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles

I'm the founder and moderator of the Yahoo! Brain-Research Group which focuses on researching and discussing treatments for brain tumors, I've developed a related website (brain-treatments.net), and I've myself lost a loved one to a brain tumor. I therefore read this book with a great deal of personal interest.Perhaps the first thing to note is that Dr. Black has a coauthor, so it's not clear to what extent the book is written in Dr. Black's own voice. I would have preferred his not having a coauthor but, regardless, the book is well written, with clear discussions of medical issues, and is also somewhat of a page turner, so it doesn't take long to finish.Dr. Black is clearly a very skilled neurosurgeon and a brilliant person overall, so I don't think that criticisms regarding his having a big ego are justified. I instead find his level of self-confidence to be appropriate given his accomplishments, and I don't see a need for him to display false modesty. I would be happy to have him as my neurosurgeon if I had a brain tumor. And the fact that he's an inspiring role model as a highly-accomplished black American is icing on the cake.Because of Dr. Black's experience and skill as a neurosurgeon specializing in brain tumors (more than 5000 operations), I found the most educational part of the book to be its detailed descriptions of specific brain tumor resection (removal) cases. However, I would caution that the resection descriptions tend to be pretty graphic, so readers who are squeamish or prone to anxiety may want to skip the book. The most important lesson from these case descriptions is that it's very important that brain tumor patients choose a neurosurgeon who's highly experienced in tumor resections, including very difficult resections, and only a small minority of neurosurgeons have that level of specialized expertise. A second key lesson is that it's highly preferable to remove all visible tumor whenever it's possible to safely do so.My major criticism of the book, which applies to the neuro-oncology establishment in general, is that brain tumor specialists (neurosurgeons, neuro-oncologists, neuropathologists, neuroradiologists, radiation oncologists, clinical researchers, and basic researchers) do a very poor job of coordinating their efforts and genuinely collaborating with colleagues around the US and the globe, and they instead tend to parochially focus on treatment approaches favored at their own institutions, even though clearly better treatments may be available elsewhere. As part of this problem, brain tumor specialists tend to ignore and dismiss treatments they're not familiar with, rather than keeping an open mind and diligently learning more about them. Financial considerations surely play a major role in this (as some of Dr. Black's comments attest), but I think that a sort of intellectual myopia is also a key factor. All of this does a huge disservice to patients, not to mention wasting a huge amount of money and other social resources. Let me give just a few examples of what I mean:1. Dr. Black supports use of melatonin, but advises against using it during radiotherapy. However, peer-reviewed studies clearly show that adding melatonin during and after radiotherapy provides a major increase in survival rate (eg, see PMID 8570130), and I'm not aware of any studies showing that avoiding melatonin during the radiotherapy phase improves this survival benefit further.2. Dr. Black suggests that the best way to use natural products which have anti-tumor benefit (like herbs) is to identify, extract, refine, and concentrate a single active ingredient, which is tantamount to searching for a magic bullet. While this strategy is sometimes effective, it's well known among experts in this area that most natural products contain a variety of active compounds, each often with multiple mechanisms of action, so these compounds will often work synergistically, and therefore trying to isolate a single compound is often the wrong approach.3. Dr. Black discusses the dendritic cell vaccine therapy being studied at Cedars-Sinai as though no one else has considered this approach, whereas several other institutions are studying dendritic cell vaccines, some of which may be more effective than the Cedars-Sinai version.4. Dr. Black doesn't mention other important treatments which provide benefits which may be comparable to or better than dendritic cell vaccines. For example, a device called Novocure treats tumors with electric fields and has shown impressive benefits with minimal toxicity. As another example, the anti-malaria drug chloroquine is already FDA-approved, inexpensive, and relatively safe, and adding it off-label to standard chemotherapy (BCNU) has been shown to increase median survival for GBM patients from about 1 year to instead 2 or 3 years, which is a large benefit, yet chloroquine isn't even mentioned in this book.5. Dr. Black has generally positive comments regarding the drug Avastin, and he notes that his patient William Tao, who was treated with Avastin and other treatments, experienced tumor recurrences distant from the original tumor. He offers no explanations and draws no implications from these distant recurrences, which suggests that he isn't aware of studies in animals and humans going back several years which have been showing that Avastin (and other anti-angiogenic treatments) substantially increase the rate of tumor invasion and distant metastases within the brain, resulting in recurrences which can be especially difficult to treat.Overall, I still think that this is a valuable book for people dealing with brain tumors, mainly because of the lack of other similar books, so I do recommend it. I've even rated it four stars. But readers should remain keenly aware of the limitations and biases of this book, since they result in the book painting a very incomplete and sometimes inaccurate picture of the treatment options available to brain tumor patients.For anyone dealing with a brain tumor, my favorite book is  Surviving Terminal Cancer: Clinical Trials, Drug Cocktails, and Other Treatments Your Oncologist Won't Tell You About  by Ben Williams, which I very highly recommend.

First a disclaimer: Dr Black is on my medical advisory board.I run the Musella Foundation For Brain Tumor Research & Information, Inc, at virtualtrials.com. I talk to thousands of brain tumor patients from around the world, and I get a lot of feedback on how these people view their doctors. Dr Black is one of the few brain tumor surgeons who I would use for myself or a loved one. He understates if anything how important he is to the brain tumor community in the book. The single most important point in this book is when he talks about the numbers of neurosurgeons and how most do not operate on many brain tumors. Only 50 or so do the volume needed to become elite. It is critical to use of these 50. The book is well written. Unlike others who complained about a co-author - I am happy they used one. Dr Black shouldn't be wasting valuable time knitting the story together - that obviously took a lot of time. He belongs in the lab and in the OR! I read the book in 1 sitting - very engrossing, and I recommend it to anyone who has any interest at all in brain tumors.

I really enjoyed this book. It was an intelligent and insight description of what it takes to be not only an excellent brain surgeon but one that had faith in his skills and the strength that is needed to be one of his patients. He not only relied on his skills to perform these difficult surgeries, but wouldn't unless you both were on the same page that you will have a good outcome from the surgery. It was more of a partnership. He never lied about the risk and the patients always new that he would do the best to get the best results for you. Wonderful to be such a gifted surgeon.

Proof that the shining brilliance and best of humanity emerges from the dust of small towns, that great inspirators and motivators can come from anywhere, and change the world in ways most people can only take for granted. Unless they stop and take a closer look... and look very deeply. He could be the man standing next to you in the elevator. He could be YOU. Or your neighbor's son, the young boy who looks out at the world and thinks "Why? How does this work? Maybe I can do this"If this book does not leave you filled with reverence and joy then you need to read it again... with your heart and mind on the same page.Thank you Dr Black for taking the time us to tell your story. Please tell us more!

To tell the truth, i was completely sold when i read all the good reciews. Basically all of them were 5 stars. So i bought the book. Read it yesterday.OMG! You can't even imagine the EGO this guy has unless you've read his book. The book contains some good but limited amount of information about the brain and the surgeries. But every word in this book shows what kind of ego this doctor possesses. So it's hard to read on. He thinks of himself as god and walks several inches above the ground. He tells us how he is almost, ALWAYS correct and how he is the BEST there is. He goes on saying that his patients do alot of research into the field and finds that he is the best there is. And he mentions that alot.He maybe an excellent doctor. But this book is not. Don't get fooled by the reviews or the cover. It's almost like a promotional booklet.There is a HUGE difference between finding a good doctor for your surgery and reading a good book.

I liked that the author shared so much of himself, his beliefs and values in his book. He was honest and forthcoming as he describes the difficulties in dealing with some of his patients which he encountered. He also shared some of his failures and successes as they fit with his stories. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in medical science and in training of neuroscientists.

I was informed about not only the role of a neurosurgeon but also about many questions which need to be answered before undergoing neurosurgery. It was an eye-opening book for me and for many people to whom I loaned and recommended it. I loaned it to a number of people and they all loved it. It would make a great gift.

黒人脳外科医Keith Black氏の驚異的な成功物語。高校生の時に実験助手として動物の心臓移植を行い、人工心肺作動時の赤血球の変化を走査電顕で観察し論文を出したそうです。通常大学4年、medical school４年かかるところを6年で終了（当時はそうした制度があったそうです）その後も脳腫瘍専門医として活躍しています。免疫療法についてはややオカルト的な部分もあります。英語は平易です。

everyone should read this book. The doctor explains in English what the brain is. He explains how the blood in the brain protects the brain from impurities. Thus the reader will learn why it takes 3+ weeks for some drugs to make a difference to how they feel. There is also good general advise for the layperson to follow ie if your doctor does lots of surgery in the area you need help in he is the one to go to, not the good looking guy who sends chills down your spine. Don't mistake personality for ability.

It was a very well written and interesting book. I read it on my Kindle.

Fascinating and inspiring - so much to learn from the gifted and brilliant Dr Black