Written both for family and friends as well as for anesthesiologists and anesthesia researchers, Autobiography of a Persistent Anesthesiologist is the fascinating story of the life and accomplishments of Dr. Edmond I. “Ted” Eger II in his own words. Both conversational and educational, this unique volume covers the family history, training, and storied career of a remarkable man and esteemed anesthesiologist and researcher. Family stories, a love of mountain climbing, and personal life events are conveyed in an informal style as if the reader is having a conversation with the author; scientific topics such as MAC, pharmacokinetics, and mechanisms of anesthetic action are covered in a precise, detailed manner intended to deepen readers’ understanding of the clinical concepts that govern inhaled anesthetic pharmacology, making them easier to understand an incorporate into practice. In this autobiography, the science of anesthetic pharmacology is inseparable from other aspects of Dr. Eger’s story—just as it was in his life.

Presents a modern vision of anaesthesia, integrating technology and knowledge, to change how anaesthesia is taught and practised.

“An engaging and illuminating exploration of the invisible medical specialty that is anesthesia.… Counting Backwards pulls back the veil on the very act of being alive.” —Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear For many of the 40 million Americans who undergo it each year, anesthesia is the source of great fear and fascination. In Counting Backwards, pediatric anesthesiologist Dr. Henry Jay Przybylo delivers an unforgettable account of the procedure’s daily dramas and fundamental mysteries. Przybylo has administered anesthesia more than 30,000 times over his thirty-year career: on newborn babies, screaming toddlers, sullen teenagers, even a gorilla. Filled with intense moments of near-disaster, life-saving successes, and simple grace, Counting Backwards is for anyone curious about what happens after we lose consciousness.

The surgeons' heads seemed small next to the huge dome-shaped lights. Together heads and lights zoomed in on this sick heart, which looked like a wiggly red ball of flesh. Gloved fingers felt and searched for new possibilities. All of a sudden there was an undeniable knowing that someday I would be a member of such a team and stand at the head of the patient to guard his or her life Bold and brilliant, Behind the Ether Screen shares the true story of Gabriele F. Roden, a woman whose attempt to break free from a childhood of relentless expectations of performance and perfection, instead ended up choosing a career with similar challenges that resulted in great successes. Born in post-war Germany, Roden was raised with rigorous discipline and motivation to choose a career based on humanitarian principles that would outlast the demolished, chaotic surroundings of her home. But it was a pivotal move to Ireland in her teens and her enrollment at University College Cork that launched her career in medicine. Her early drive to excel in the specialty of anesthesiology brought her to the United States of America as a young graduate. She completed her internship in Worcester, MA, pursued her anesthesia residency at Yale University, and after a few years in private practice at a community hospital, she returned to academic medicine in Boston. Spanning a career of more than thirty-seven years, Dr. Roden's moving account offers insight into the behind-the-scenes struggles and rewards of her specialty.

Each working day at least 40,000 Americans undergoing surgery require general anesthesia: an anesthesiologist renders them oblivious. Fifty years ago when the author Dr. Zeitlin began giving anesthesia in the United Kingdom one patient in 1500 died as a direct consequence of the anesthetic. That number was sadly true all over the world. In 2011 mortality and morbidity from anesthesia is too rare to count accurately. Nevertheless the increasing average age of patients coming to surgery and the inventiveness of surgeons require the same or greater vigilance and sophistication that has led to this desirable change. In this book Dr. Zeitlin gives us a view of the difficulties and struggles that have led to this improvement. He recounts his own untutored, frightened early days in the operating room for six years in hospitals in and around London. He continues with illuminating and powerful stories about the remainder of his career both in academic and private practice in Boston, Massachusetts. The patient in the hands of nearly all other specialists is able to see what his or her physician struggles with in making an accurate diagnosis and planning treatment. Obviously the surgeon's patient in the care of the anesthesiologist knows nothing about what actually occurs in the operating room. We believe this is the first book that gives the reader an inside view of the actors on this stage. It is not for nothing that operating rooms are called operating theatres in the United Kingdom. Although he does not aspire to such literary heights the author would like to think that to a small extent he does for anesthesia what Dr. Atul Gawande achieved for surgery with his illuminating book 'Complications'. Dr. Zeitlin tackles difficult matters such as possible awareness during anesthesia, drug addiction, violence related to anesthesia, his own and others' mishaps and the struggle for recognition that anesthesia is the practice of medicine. The author believes that anesthesiology is the use of intensive care and monitoring in the operating room, the recovery room and in the pain clinic. Some of the stories are so harrowing that the author includes three 'Intermissions' to provide the reader with some intriguing speculations about anesthesia. The most important story Dr. Zeitlin tells is that about the Anesthesia Patient Safety movement. Many of the principal movers of this success story worked in Boston and the author was privileged to have known them all. The disciplines of safe patient care began with anesthesiologists and have now spread to all of medicine. Anesthesiologists introduced the use of simulators in accident prevention. The author does not dismiss the very important roles played in all this by cardiologists, surgeons, pre-and postoperative nurses, our medical industry colleagues and most of all our close collaborators, nurse- anesthetists.

Unnecessary death rarely happens at the hands of doctors, but it does happen. Sometimes the cause is medical error. But sometimes the cause is politics. The issues underlying many medical catastrophes are numerous: a power struggle between providers, uncertainty over who’s in charge, hesitation to practice good medicine for fear of being fired, specialization run amok, part-time doctoring. Doctors often prefer to ignore the problems, but patient safety demands that they be aired. And so does the future of the medical profession. Beneath the politics lies confusion: Doctors no longer know who they are. They don’t know how much authority they should wield. They don’t know what distinguishes them from other healthcare professionals. They don’t what about being a doctor should make them proud. When doctors lack a firm sense of who they are, the whole of medicine lacks an essential core, giving rise to personal and professional politics—and catastrophes. Patients may be relying on a system that has veered off course. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients in the operating room and interactions with colleagues, Ronald W. Dworkin traces his path from medical school to anesthesiology residency to his early years in private practice, with the experiences of his father and grandfather, also doctors, hovering overhead, in his quest to answer the question: What is a Doctor? Sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes poignant, the story of what it means to be a doctor in today’s medical setting comes to life, as Dworkin outlines the contours, the challenges and rewards, of modern medicine, and how it must be rescued in order to preserve the profession and protect patients from disasters.