Judith's Pavilion : The Haunting Memories of a Neurosurgeon

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite medical books
Review: As a surgeon who enjoys the writings of other physicians, I was disappointed with Judith's Pavilion. His metaphors and analogies are frequently a bit far fetched. The writing lacks coherence while his stream of consciousness makes the prose difficult to read. The author rarely points to anything profound or intriguing, though he does write with conviction. There are plenty of other reflective books about medicine that would be better to sample than Judith's Pavilion. If this genre interests you, try something by one of these physicians: Paul Brand (The Gift of Pain, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made), Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings), Lewis Thomas (The Lives of a Cell, The Youngest Science), Richard Selzer (Mortal Lessons, Letters to a Young Doctor), David Graham (Thoughts Along the Way), Harold Klawans (Toscanini's Fumble, Newton's Madness), or Sherwin Nuland (The Wisdom of the Body).

Rating:
Summary: Failed to interest me
Review: As a surgeon who enjoys the writings of other physicians, I was disappointed with Judith's Pavilion. His metaphors and analogies are frequently a bit far fetched. The writing lacks coherence while his stream of consciousness makes the prose difficult to read. The author rarely points to anything profound or intriguing, though he does write with conviction. There are plenty of other reflective books about medicine that would be better to sample than Judith's Pavilion. If this genre interests you, try something by one of these physicians: Paul Brand (The Gift of Pain, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made), Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings), Lewis Thomas (The Lives of a Cell, The Youngest Science), Richard Selzer (Mortal Lessons, Letters to a Young Doctor), David Graham (Thoughts Along the Way), Harold Klawans (Toscanini's Fumble, Newton's Madness), or Sherwin Nuland (The Wisdom of the Body).

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite medical books
Review: Combining science and humanities is a fascinating undertaking - I'm finding more and more examples of it; his is one of the best.

Rating:
Summary: For the subject of neurosurgery, there are better books.
Review: I found this book to be less of an account of a neurosurgeon's day to day life and more of a doctor's reflections on a few significant patients in his career. There are other books out there that discusses patients from a neurosurgical perspective and they are better reading too. For a more technical read that really brings you into the world of neurosurgery, try The Healing Blade by Edward Sylvester, Working in a Very Small Place by Mark Shelton, When Air Hits Your Brain by Frank Vertosick Jr MD, First Do No Harm by Kenyon Rainer MD. All of these books have accounts of triumph and loss from the point of view of doctor and patient. My two favorites are told from an outside observer (by Sylvester and Shelton, respectively) because as outsiders, both Sylvester and Shelton take the time to introduce the reader to the Barrow's Neurological Institute and Pitt's dept of Neurosurgery in their respective books. If you are interested in neurosurgery as a future career choice, or you just want to know what a neurosurgeon does, then check out my recommendations. If you want to read a heart wrenching tale of life and death entangled with neurosurgery, again, take my recommendations. Two books I've left out of this list are Frances Conley's Walking Out on the Boys (less about neurosurgery and more about her experiences with the social politics at Stanford's Dept of Neurosurgery) and Ben Carson's Gifted Hands (an inspirational autobiography that has some technical neurosurgical cases, but is mainly a recount of his own personal demons and ultimate triumphs) because these two books do not dive deeply enough into the nitty gritty heart of the day-in and day-out of being a neurosurgeon. They are, however, pretty good books in their own right.

Rating:
Summary: For the subject of neurosurgery, there are better books.
Review: I found this book to be less of an account of a neurosurgeon's day to day life and more of a doctor's reflections on a few significant patients in his career. There are other books out there that discusses patients from a neurosurgical perspective and they are better reading too. For a more technical read that really brings you into the world of neurosurgery, try The Healing Blade by Edward Sylvester, Working in a Very Small Place by Mark Shelton, When Air Hits Your Brain by Frank Vertosick Jr MD, First Do No Harm by Kenyon Rainer MD. All of these books have accounts of triumph and loss from the point of view of doctor and patient. My two favorites are told from an outside observer (by Sylvester and Shelton, respectively) because as outsiders, both Sylvester and Shelton take the time to introduce the reader to the Barrow's Neurological Institute and Pitt's dept of Neurosurgery in their respective books. If you are interested in neurosurgery as a future career choice, or you just want to know what a neurosurgeon does, then check out my recommendations. If you want to read a heart wrenching tale of life and death entangled with neurosurgery, again, take my recommendations. Two books I've left out of this list are Frances Conley's Walking Out on the Boys (less about neurosurgery and more about her experiences with the social politics at Stanford's Dept of Neurosurgery) and Ben Carson's Gifted Hands (an inspirational autobiography that has some technical neurosurgical cases, but is mainly a recount of his own personal demons and ultimate triumphs) because these two books do not dive deeply enough into the nitty gritty heart of the day-in and day-out of being a neurosurgeon. They are, however, pretty good books in their own right.

Rating:
Summary: A solid work with room to grow
Review: The practice of medicine holds special fascination for me, a longtime practitioner myself. This work reveals a depth of feeling and a revelation of the human soul that is often overlooked in such an important profession as neurosurgery; still, Dr. Flitter's writing at times is difficult to stay with, and he sometimes wanders unneccessarily. However, writing from the heart as he does is honest and difficult, and for that I applaud his work. I would recommend his book to others in the healthcare field.