Movies/books about surgeons/surgery

[Fundersam]

Are there any movies, documentaries or books about surgeons or surgery?
I'm looking to get some insight into the lifestyle of a surgeon, and also into surgery itself.

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[filter07]

Two off the top of my head:

Complications by Atul Gawande. I really like the main theme of fallibility, exploring pitfalls, and how to change our approach to decision making to improve.

Gifted Hands by Ben Carson (also a made-for-TV movie) - I saw the movie only. It is sort of the opposite end of the spectrum as Complications, I think. What I got out of it is the drive, and self-confidence required to be one of the best of the best in surgery.

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If you are looking into insight on lifestyle, you might check out Boston Med. The show has its critics but the miniseries really focused a lot on surgeons.

 

[Encephalectomy]

when the air hits your brain by Frank Vertosick is an awesome book about neurosurgery residency there are lots of biography's out there about surgeons as well.

 

[Dr Daneeka]

There are a lot of books about surgeons during war:

Coppola - recent book about a pediatric surgeon in Iraq

The Oath - a general/plastic surgeon works on both side of the conflict in Chechnya

War Hospital - a group of docs and surgeons attempts to survive in a besieged town during the balkan conflict

The Dressing Station and Contact Wounds - 2 books about a war surgeon and self proclaimed "medical vagabond" from South Africa. An interesting read/life for someone looking for an "atypical" career in medicine

 

[SLUser11]

Are there any movies, documentaries or books about surgeons or surgery?
I'm looking to get some insight into the lifestyle of a surgeon, and also into surgery itself.

There's Gifted Hands by Seymour Schwartz. It's a little dry, but still an interesting recount of some of our surgical pioneers.

 

[gstrub]

Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted

 

[45408]

http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Remar...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287182684&sr=1-1

Cutting Remarks, by Sidney Schwab. It's a story of his experiences as a surgery resident at UCSF in the 60s-70s, including a stint in Vietnam. He had a great blog - http://surgeonsblog.blogspot.com/ - that he no longer updates, but a lot of the old entries are pretty good. It was a great read, and he's pretty down to earth.

 

[ESU_MD]

Isn't "House of God" almost a required read prior to residency?

 

[MSRSA]

"Making the Cut" and "The Patient" are both books by Dr Mohamed Khadra, an Australian urologist. The books focus mostly on the surgical aspects of his residency and fellowship, however, in "The Patient" he offers a different perspective - giving a more patient-oriented account of surgery.

 

[GuzzyRon]

"Something the Lord Made" is a cool, laid-back surgical movie. It's a movie about Alfred Blalock and his assistant Vivien Thomas, who pioneered modern heart surgery.

 

[MightyMoose]

"Something the Lord Made" is a cool, laid-back surgical movie. It's a movie about Alfred Blalock and his assistant Vivien Thomas, who pioneered modern heart surgery.

I enjoyed that movie as well.


"Another Day In The Frontal Lobe" by Katrina Furlock (or something like that) was a pretty good book about neurosurgery.

 

[atran017]

I know it's an old thread, but couldn't resist...

One of my favorite books detailing some of the landmark experimental procedures in cardiac surgery. A few of old legends mentioned in this book only recently passed away (Cooley / DeBakey).....

"Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the First Human Heart" by McRae

A great read in my opinion.


Enjoy!


A.

 

[Butler]

Just a MS1 here, but I extremely enjoyed Hot Lights, Cold Steel by Dr. Collins. I liked his down to Earth and straight forward writing style. Atul, writes great stuff, but he can get a bit too..."flowery", for lack of a better word, for my liking.

 

[nowonder]

Highly recommend "Walk on Water" by Michael Ruhlman, about the Cleveland Clinic Peds CT program.

Also, "The Surgeons" (Name of the author escapes me) about the Columbia Heart program. The policy stuff at the end is a little dated, but the flipside is that you can see what "Dr. OZ" was like before he turned into a TV quack.

 

[VisionaryTics]

Just a MS1 here, but I extremely enjoyed Hot Lights, Cold Steel by Dr. Collins. I liked his down to Earth and straight forward writing style. Atul, writes great stuff, but he can get a bit too..."flowery", for lack of a better word, for my liking.

Ditto on Collins (especially considering he's an alum of my undergrad).

Great book, without the rah-rah sensationalism of other accounts or the Ivory Tower mentality of people like Verghese or Gawande.

 

[SLUser11]

Are there any movies, documentaries or books about surgeons or surgery?
I'm looking to get some insight into the lifestyle of a surgeon, and also into surgery itself.

I really liked the movie, "The Doctor" with William Hurt. It's obviously a little dated, but I think it's well done. No other movies come to mind.

Most books I've read by doctors have been sort of boring. I never finished the "Gifted Hands" book I mentioned earlier in this thread. I became tired of Gawande as well (I read Complications and Better, never tempted to read checklist manifesto). I recently tried to read Oliver Sacks and gave up....too cerebral for my taste.

One physician author who I do enjoy is William Carlos Williams, but it's not really related to surgery. I also like Moshe Schein, but I haven't read enough to give an educated opinion. He has a book on surgery that I've read, but the recs are pretty dated and biased.

My personal favorite surgery book is Top Knife. It's just awesome, and every surgery resident should read it, IMHO.

I'd be interested to hear what others thought of the Checklist Manifesto, since I have a few trips coming up, and need some plane material.

Also, I'm half-waiting for the Surgisphere guy to come on here and recommend one of his own books....

 

[thunder hawk]

i wonder why no body has mentioned about "Greys Anatomy"

 

[Buzz Me]

i wonder why no body has mentioned about "Greys Anatomy"

I thought the thread topic was movies/books about "surgeons/surgery," not "soap operas" or "medical inaccuracies."

 

[Apollyon]

I really liked the movie, "The Doctor" with William Hurt. It's obviously a little dated, but I think it's well done. No other movies come to mind.

Just as an aside, a classmate in med school was from LA (Beverly Hills, more specifically), and she knew the guy on whom "The Doctor" was based, and, as is prone to occasionally happen, the real guy was even worse; they had to dial the character down for the film.

One physician author who I do enjoy is William Carlos Williams, but it's not really related to surgery.

William Carlos Williams became a doctor to support his writing (shift work, anyone?). We read that book in college in one of the best (along with Milton, and I was a Biology B.S. major) classes I took in 4 years (Literature, Science, and Technology), and I remember from one story - 20 years later - about an industrial accident, and the patient was burnt (and I mean "burnt"), and the doctor (in the author's type, not my italics) did not get closer to the patient than 6 feet. What I learned, and has served me well all these years, is "always touch the patient". That is a lesson for the surgeons, too.

 

[kitsunepixie]

I have some great neurosurgery shows out of Japan that I highly recommend:

This one (http://www.asiatorrents.com/index.p...s&id=db9b1843fdebbc7edb0e4f79c728686bbd50ebca) is Jin, about a modern day neurosurgeon who time travels to the Edo period in Japan where he tries to advance medicine by introducing simple concepts like sterile technique, anesthesia, antibiotics, and more in order to advance medicine in hopes that it makes his fiancee's brainstem glioma operable in the future (she also happens to be a neurosurgeon). I'm most impressed with how accurate and realistic the surgery scenes are...


This one (http://www.hulu.com/watch/114306/naoki-urasawas-monster-herr-dr-tenma) is Monster, which is a cartoon about a Japanese neurosurgeon in Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall who saves the life of a little boy who turns out to be evil incarnate.

My favorite surgery book is When the Air Hits Your Brain.

 

[Adam184]

"Forgive and remember" And "The Scalpel's Edge" are both fantastic sociological analysis of surgical life.

 

[ESU_MD]

King of Hearts- about one of the TRUE pioneers of surgery C Walton Lillihei. one of my all time favorites.

"This Ain't ER" is a nice book written by some dude who went through the UAB program(and survived!!)

another good one is called "Gifts of Time" about a pediatric neurosurgeon Fred Epstein at some place in NY City, forget which hospital


and of much interest, Dr Cooley's autobiography will be released soon.
there is already a nice book about him avail cheaply used on amazon.

 

[kitsunepixie]

Another one, this time about an unlicensed General Surgeon who charges outrageous fees, although most of the time he saves people like the destitute for free or teaches the arrogant a lesson, often without any recognition/compensation for his services.


http://tezukainenglish.com/bm/series/black_jack/index.shtml

"Black Jack (1973-1983) is Tezuka’s best loved series written more for adults than for children, and Black Jack his most popular adult character. A charismatic but sinister surgical genius, Black Jack travels the world performing seemingly impossible feats of surgery. Among Black Jack's many medical accomplishments are full-body skin grafts, arm transplants, brain transplants, fingerprint transplants, grafting two people together to share one heart, extracting full-body parasites, operating at lightning speed, operating blind, operating in space, operating on a dozen patients at once, operating on dogs, cats, deer, bears, monkeys, birds, whales, aliens, ghosts, mummies, plants and computers, and removing a parasitic worm from his own intestines while under assault by a pack of wild dingoes."

 

[aashiq]

Are there any movies, documentaries or books about surgeons or surgery?
I'm looking to get some insight into the lifestyle of a surgeon, and also into surgery itself.

There is this movie "A beating heart" Its a race for doing the first heart transplant.
Also take a look at Puzzle people by Thomas Starzl

 

[JayDoc06]

"The making of a surgeon", William Nolen. About GS residency at Bellevue NYC, I think in the 1950s. Very interesting to read what residency used to be like.

 

[Apollyon]

"The making of a surgeon", William Nolen. About GS residency at Bellevue NYC, I think in the 1950s. Very interesting to read what residency used to be like.

Mid 1960s. First published in 1970.