When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery Paperback – Illustrated, March 17, 2008

The history of neurosurgery is a fascinating one, however, even more interesting is to see how it has developed over the last century since, for example, the legendary Dr. Harvey Cushing forged the techniques of brain surgery over seventy years ago. `When the Air Hits Your Brain - Tales of Neurosurgery' is a compelling collection of tales written with erudition and sensitivity with at times gruesome detail of brain operations that sometimes were successful and other times not. As Dr. Vertosick proposes in his introduction, that, for the most part, a surgeon learns more from the failures than the successes; therefore most of the stories within are tragedies - failures that paved the way to future successes. For those interested in the world of neurosurgery, this book should more than satisfy as it covers a vast array of different cases as well as the general ambience and culture of this very specialized profession.The author begins his tale as a burgeoning medical student, internship, ending with his last year as Chief Resident. Interestingly, his last year, from his perspective was his worst. He explains that being a Chief Resident is a precarious position, because you have to continue to cow tow to the attending staff and the junior residents continue to look upon you as just another taskmaster, a kind of in-house bully, ensuring the skills required are learned. Vertosick explains the position as "straddling two worlds, "...a sergeant in the surgical military, friend to neither enlisted man nor officer, endowed with great responsibilities but given little true authority." (P.254)There are many miraculous and downright bizarre cases chronicled throughout the text. One of the strange cases was the woman who had been shot between the eyes by her drunken and irate boyfriend. Dr. Vertosick arrived hurriedly from home to the ER to find the woman in the waiting room, her head wrapped in a bloody towel, watching the television with a police officer by her side. Taking her into the examination room, the woman had indeed been shot directly between the eyes, and the exist wound, at the top of the back of her skull. The bullet, upon examining the exit wound dropped to the floor, where the police officer quickly retrieved it and left the room. Fortunately for the woman, the bullet had hit the skull, ricochet upward and bouncing, more so, rattling, between her brain and the top of her skull, lodging without damage. What truly amazed Vertosick, was the woman's attitude, because she continued to make excuses for her boyfriend, claiming he didn't really mean to shoot her in the head, he was just a little angry with her. She didn't realize how close to death she actually came.There are many other strange and touching stories, the most heart wrenching being infants and young children born with brain related illnesses which the staff could not treat. What I admired in this text was Dr. Vertosick's honesty and his efforts to steel himself from becoming too close to his patients - he called it becoming a psychopathic doctor, however, in the end, he discovers a middle way.Frank Vertosick is a very good writer and I hope he finds the time in the future to write another book about the profession.

I am an O.R. nurse and thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Thank you Dr. Vertosick for sharing your thoughts, feelings,and insights as I traveled this journey with you. It is refreshing to see this from the other side, as frequently, we , the O.R. crew only get the brunt of the anger from surgeons. I was right there with you, pulling that tumor out, praying for a safe passage & recovery. I am most grateful to you for sharing your story. Thank you !

When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgeryby Dr. Frank Vertosick Jr., M.D.Tales from NeurosurgeryI took a break from my quest to re-read my library of books with an eye towards reviewing them on my blog, Amazon.com and Goodreads to venture into the realm of a new book. I chose When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery not from any specific recommendation but because of the reviews on Amazon.com. I normally don’t do this but I figured it was worth a shot.And I’m glad I did.Dr. Vertosick is a great author (or he has a damned good editor; either one will do) and has a very inviting style of writing about very complex subjects. He doesn’t go into great medical details, instead, he gives you enough to understand the problem the goes into what was done and how he felt about it.I especially enjoyed his time in England and really appreciated the differences between the two views of medicine. I had to laugh when one of the senior doctors talked in disparaging ethnic terms about a patient, something Dr. Vertosick said wouldn’t fly in America. I appreciated his comment because I found that some of the European sports commentators would say things that would have gotten them yanked off the air in the US.I found myself reading his chapter on his pediatric patient Rebecca twice because it touched my heart. His other patients were equally fascinating including the Viet Nam vet with the blown aneurism.This is a highly recommended book. It’s an easy read (as compared to the previously reviewed book When Illness Strikes the Leader: The Dilemma of the Captive King by Professor Robert S. Robins and Dr. Jerrold Post M.D. written more for the academics in us) and a compelling read. I found it hard to turn away when lunch time was over.I read the electronic version mostly on my iPad mini and my iPhone. I’m assuming that W. W. Norton did the electronic version, which I found (as opposed to Treating the Brain: What the Best Doctors Know) to be fairly decent though I really hated the fact that it was justified text and wished publishers would not do this – it makes reading difficult and hyphenation impossible. I did find a few mistakes such as run on words, but nothing was a show stopper such as with the aforementioned book.I’d recommend this book to anyone who is interested in first-person accounts of “How I became a Doctor,” those interested in surgeons and surgery, brain surgery and some neurology thrown in for good measure. I give this book 4.5 stars – a good solid read for those of us who enjoy this kind of tome.My next foray is back to my library and hardcover books is A Brief History of Disease, Science and Medicine by Michael T. Kennedy. I really enjoyed it the first time and am curious as to how it stands up to time and a second read.

I absolutely loved this book. I have read every day for the past 893 days, I subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, and I go through most books in a day or two and I can’t remember the last time I actually wrote a review on a book. This book isn’t part of Kindle Unlimited, I bought it at full price(I do that occasionally) and I absolutely loved it. One case that he described even made me cry, and I never cry. My mom once called me, in sixth grade, at a lifelong friend of hers, who I might add that I barely knew, wedding a rock who she knew wouldn’t cry so she sat next to me so she wouldn’t cry either. I’m now in my 40’s and I’ve lost the ability to cry tears due to an autoimmune disease that destroyed my lacrimal glands(tear producing glands) so I absolutely hate to cry but I couldn’t help it and the more I thought about it the more I cried but it was all worth it. I absolutely loved this book and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes to read medical books or autobiographies. This was one of the best books I’ve read in an extremely long time. Like I said I’ve read every day for the past 893 days, subscribe to Kindle Unlimited and read a book about every 1-2 days and can’t remember the last time I wrote a review for a book but I enjoyed this book so much that I just had to write a review about it.