Like the 14th-century surgeon in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dr. Augusto Sarmiento has a tale to tell. This book is both an interesting autobiographical story of a young immigrant doctor's rise to success in the United States and a critique of recent trends in American medicine by someone who is now a recognized authority in orthopaedic surgery. Educated in his native Colombia, Dr. Sarmiento immigrated to the United States not long after receiving his medical degree. His early years were difficult as he struggled to overcome the language barrier and often encountered prejudice regarding his medical training in Latin America. Feeling like an outsider for many years, he finally came to realize that his unorthodox perspective on medicine was an asset that could be used to make significant contributions to his specialty. He was among the pioneers who brought total hip replacement surgery to the United States, and his research improved the profession's understanding of the way fractures heal. In time he was elected president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.As someone who has practiced medicine for almost fifty years on many levels he is profoundly disturbed by recent developments in the American healthcare scene. He is especially critical of the increasing control of education and research by the pharmaceutical industry, the unconscionable overuse of surgery by many practitioners in his field, and the greed factor that has saturated the medical profession. This modern surgeon's tale is both an inspirational story of how one man made a difference and a revealing critique of the ills affecting American medicine today.Augusto Sarmiento, M.D. (Miami, FL), is currently professor and chairman emeritus at the University of Miami Medical School. A world-recognized authority in orthopaedic surgery, he has won many awards and has been invited to lecture more than 500 times in over 40 countries.

In a world where magic is fading and science begun to ascend, a young surgeon in medical school experiences an obsession so forbidden that its realization will change him forever. "She looked as if she were asleep, still with that slight smile, floating on the thick sargassum, glowing from the emerald tincture that would keep the small crabs and other scavengers from her. She looked otherworldly and beautiful." Sometimes life is not enough. Also including five more stories of dark wonder from Rambo and VanderMeer, from "The Dead Girl's Wedding March" to "The Farmer's Cat." Enter a world of rat suitors, severed arms, and Fungi Et Fruits de Mer, served up with prose both appetizing and uncanny. Dark fantasy has never been quite so decadent . . .

In her most masterful novel of medical suspense, New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen creates a villain of unforgettable evil--and the one woman who can catch him before he kills again.

Americans have long been fascinated by the personal lives of Hollywood celebrities and the over-hyped magic of plastic surgery. In this entertaining memoir, Dr. Norman Leaf, a highly respected plastic surgeon, reveals the complex and all-too-human connection that exists between these two worlds. In his thirty-five years practicing in Beverly Hills, California, Leaf has encountered the great and those aspiring to be great, seeing them in a different light than the general public. This unique perspective contributes to a touching, inspiring, humorous, and eye-opening journey into a world few have the opportunity to see close-up, while debunking the myths and clearing up the misconceptions about plastic surgery. Are Those Real? is not a kiss-and-tell memoir. With the exception of a few iconic figures, Leaf is careful to protect the identities of his patients. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, Are Those Real? paints an intimate portrait of a master surgeon, while shining a light into a little-known corner of modern culture. In this memoir, Leaf appeals to biography buffs and illustrates the good, bad, happy, and just plain funny aspects of plastic surgery.

In 1844, Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, encountered nitrous oxide, or laughing gas--then an entertainment for performers in carnival-like theatrical acts--and began administering the gas as the first true anesthetic. His discovery would change the world, reshaping medicine and humanity's relationship with pain. But that discovery would also thrust Wells into scandals that threatened his reputation, his family, and his sanity--hardships and triumphs that resonate in today's struggles with what hurts us and what we take to stop the hurt. In this novel, Michael Downs mines the gaps in the historical record and imagines the motivations and mysteries behind Wells's morbid fascination with pain, as well as the price he and his wife, Elizabeth, paid--first through his obsession, then his addiction. The book is a love story, but also a story of what love can't redeem; of narcotic dreams and waking insanity; of humbug and miracle; of pain's destruction and what pains can never be eased. Following Wells throughout New England and across the ocean to Paris, the novel immerses the reader in the nineteenth century, conveying through rich physical description and telling dialogue the tragic life of a dentist who gave everything to rid the world of suffering.

The author of the bestseller The Disappearing Spoon reveals the secret inner workings of the brain through strange but true stories. Early studies of the human brain used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike -- strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, horrendous accidents -- and see how victims coped. In many cases their survival was miraculous, if puzzling. Observers were amazed by the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed, altering victims' personalities. Parents suddenly couldn't recognize their own children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars. Some people couldn't speak but could still sing. In The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, Sam Kean travels through time with stories of neurological curiosities: phantom limbs, Siamese twin brains, viruses that eat patients' memories, blind people who see through their tongues. He weaves these narratives together with prose that makes the pages fly by, to create a story of discovery that reaches back to the 1500s and the high-profile jousting accident that inspired this book's title. With the lucid, masterful explanations and razor-sharp wit his fans have come to expect, Kean explores the brain's secret passageways and recounts the forgotten tales of the ordinary people whose struggles, resilience, and deep humanity made neuroscience possible.

Morris presents an over-the-shoulder look at a major heart surgery center, along with gripping accounts of how doctors think and judge each other, what they believe is really driving up health care costs, and the future of health care policy in America.