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(97 reviews)
Author: Katrina Firlik
ISBN : 1400063205
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Format: PDF
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Katrina Firlik is a neurosurgeon, one of only two hundred or so women among the alpha males who dominate this high-pressure, high-prestige medical specialty. She is also a superbly gifted writer–witty, insightful, at once deeply humane and refreshingly wry. In Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, Dr. Firlik draws on this rare combination to create a neurosurgeon’s Kitchen Confidential–a unique insider’s memoir of a fascinating profession.
Neurosurgeons are renowned for their big egos and aggressive self-confidence, and Dr. Firlik confirms that timidity is indeed rare in the field. “They’re the kids who never lost at musical chairs,” she writes. A brain surgeon is not only a highly trained scientist and clinician but also a mechanic who of necessity develops an intimate, hands-on familiarity with the gray matter inside our skulls. It’s the balance between cutting-edge medical technology and manual dexterity, between instinct and expertise, that Firlik finds so appealing–and so difficult to master.
Firlik recounts how her background as a surgeon’s daughter with a strong stomach and a keen interest in the brain led her to this rarefied specialty, and she describes her challenging, atypical trek from medical student to fully qualified surgeon. Among Firlik’s more memorable cases: a young roofer who walked into the hospital with a three-inch-long barbed nail driven into his forehead, the result of an accident with his partner’s nail gun, and a sweet little seven-year-old boy whose untreated earache had become a raging, potentially fatal infection of the brain lining.
From OR theatrics to thorny ethical questions, from the surprisingly primitive tools in a neurosurgeon’s kit to glimpses of future techniques like the “brain lift,” Firlik cracks open medicine’s most prestigious and secretive specialty. Candid, smart, clear-eyed, and unfailingly engaging, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe is a mesmerizing behind-the-scenes glimpse into a world of incredible competition and incalculable rewards.
Direct download links available for Free Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside
- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (May 2, 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1400063205
- ISBN-13: 978-1400063208
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
Free Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside
Katrina Firlik is one of approximately 4,500 neurosurgeons in the United States. Although only five percent are women, the number is growing as more bright and ambitious females enter the field. In her book, "Another Day in the Frontal Lobe," Firlik writes about her seven years of post-medical school training which led to her appointment as Chief Resident of Neurosurgery at the age of thirty-three, and later, to a job in an upscale Connecticut hospital.
After briefly touching on the history of neurosurgery, Firlik discusses the nature of this specialty. It is a combination of science and mechanics. Unlike neurologists and psychologists, both of whom deal with the human brain, it is the neurosurgeon's task to physically heal patients who have blood clots, tumors, and other traumas that afflict the brain and spinal cord. Technical proficiency, accuracy, and speed on the part of the surgeon are all essential if the patient is to survive with minimal impairment.
The book is filled with anecdotes about unusual cases, such as the carpenter who sat placidly in the emergency room with a heavy-duty nail sticking out of his skull, and the child whose mother allowed his routine ear infection to develop into meningitis because she refused to give him antibiotics. Firlik talks about the anatomy and function of the brain clearly, using layman's terms. Squeamish readers should beware, however, since the author describes her cases in graphic detail.
Although Firlik's account is engrossing and informative enough, her writing style is a bit scattered; she routinely jumps from one subject to another. In addition, we never get to know the author very well as a person.
It is really becoming quite astonishing to see the sheer amount of medical memoirs or medical autobiographies that have been hitting the book market over the last five to ten years. Having an interest in medical training as a subject and medical history, these memoirs never fail to intrigue and entertain. Another Day in the Frontal Lobe is no exception, and what makes this particular narrative more compelling is the fact that it is written by a woman, a neurosurgeon, where the profession twenty-five years ago was predominately a male domain. This is not the main focus of the text, however, as Firlik proposes, women in the profession have more or less paved the way for up and coming female (neuro) surgeons, making her experience much less troublesome. Similar to many medical memoirs, the narrative begins during the infamous residency period of training, where most of the more meaningful (and horrific) experiences occur for the doctor.
Firlik writes in a light and breezy conversational tone creating the atmosphere for the reader of sitting with her in a café drinking coffee and listening to her expound about her childhood, marriage, medical philosophy, her approach to medicine and how it developed; and her interesting personal philosophy on what life is and how she views the world. I did not expect the depth of a theologian or philosopher, but her `Nature' based views are not surprising in the least coming from a woman of science.
Horror stories are common to this genre but the author only retells a few, focusing more on the neurosurgical methods themselves and how they are developing. One of my favourite chapters is "Tools" where Firlik discusses the relatively new 3-D image-guidance technology where...
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