The Surgeons – Charles R. Morris ****

Seeing a still-warm human heart, beating just minutes ago, sliced up takes some getting used to. For journalist Charles Morris as he observes a heart transplant, this is just another shock in his year-long stay with a team of top heart surgeons at a New York hospital.

His admiration for the medics is clear. Their skill, training and concentration have saved thousands of lives. And yet there is something eerie about this book, a hint of a horror movie. The physicians perform near miracles as they work on patients suspended between life and death by machines and clever tricks. But the cultural value of the heart is such that, fleetingly, there is the impression that surgeons are removing more than just flesh.

Morris’ descriptions convey the urgency and precision of heat surgery. He also reveals the contrasts: the delicate manipulation of tiny vessels around the heart during a by-pass operation and the sheer physical effort required to saw through the chest bone and later ratchet the rib cage back together. The endurance and stamina of the operating team – eight hours bent over a patient without a drink, food or toilet break while maintaining absolute concentration – is to be marvelled at.

The mixed emotions stimulated by the macabre runs to ‘harvest’ organs from the recently deceased are hard to deal with. Across New York state, teams gently remove organs – heart, lung, kidney and liver – from the dead, still pink from the life-support machines needed to keep the organs in top condition. The tragedy of an early death balanced against the priceless gift of life for four or five others.

The Surgeons is thought-provoking, gripping and occasionally desperately sad. It is an uneasy read, raising issues of mortality and who should receive precious donor organs. Morris’ almost blind devotion to the operating team contrasts with his swipe at the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. Technical terms, hard to avoid when describing open-heart surgery, can make procedures hard to follow, and the Americanisms – gurney (trolley), OR (operating theatre), for example — take some getting used to. Overall it’s a fast-moving book that holds the reader. Though written to mark the triumph of science, the feeling of witnessing a horror movie was hard to shake.

Hardback:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Maria Hodges

Comments

Meet the Neighbors - Steven Benner *****

I love popular science books, but it's a quiet sort of love: it's not often a book like this gets me really excited - but Meet the Neighbours (sorry, I know it's Neighbors, but it grates) does just that. Once upon a time there was quite a market in books speculating about life on Mars, but of late most Martian titles have focused on getting to and colonising Mars (though often avoiding the 'c' word). Steven Benner drags us back to see the evidence for life having existed there, and does so with a vengeance. (Almost literally - he really lays into those who are dismissive of what evidence there is.) Do we have proof? Well, no - but proofs are for mathematicians. As Benner says 'science does not deal in proof... Rather, it relies on a 'preponderance of evidence' standard to shift the burden of proof.' Benner points out the weird reality that since the Viking landers, which arrived in the 1970s, there hasn't been a mission looking for organic sig...

Data Empire - Roopika Risam ****

The central thesis presented by Roopika Risam is that information gives us (and particularly countries) the power to organise, control and dominate others. Although I have a couple of issues with the presentation, this is a genuinely interesting trip through the history of our use of stored information from the earliest tallies to the latest information technology. I loved a quote from Lisa Gitelman that data is is always 'cooked' so 'raw data is an oxymoron'. This neatly underlines Risam's thesis that data and information are not neutral facts, but rather tools that (like everything from fire to electronics) can be used for good or evil. As we are taken through the historical context, it can sometimes be a little difficult to judge whether Risam regards a particular example as bad or good, even when the outcome is disastrous. One thing I didn't like too much is the adherence to a popular science writing approach that has got distinctly hackneyed: opening chapte...

Andrew Jaffe - Five way interview

Andrew Jaffe is professor of astrophysics and cosmology at Imperial College, London and director of the Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology. His new book is The Random Universe. Why science? I’ve always been interested in science, in particular in astronomy, astrophysics, and space. One of my earliest memories - back in nursery school in New Jersey, I think - was watching one of the moon launches. I wanted that excitement to be part of my life! I never got to be an astronaut, but I did get to be part of the Planck Satellite team, and was privileged to be able to travel to the ESA Spaceport in French Guiana to watch the launch. In between, I was lucky enough to have a supportive family, get a good education, and find inspiring teachers, mentors, and collaborators. They helped me model the universe, and helped me learn how to refine those models in the face of experimental and observational evidence. That is, they taught me to be a scientist. Why this book? The Random...

Search This Blog