‘Genius on the Edge’, by Gerald Imber, M.D.
I wrote about Dr. William Halsted’s life achievements, and about his vices, in the post https://witoldniesluchowski.com/how-did-a-cocaine-addict-change-surgery-in-america/. The book, Genius on the Edge, is, however, about a different aspect of his life story. It’s about how, out of nowhere, there appeared in Baltimore a medical excellence center. A world-class institution, and a hub for contemporary medical […]
Does a Stressful Job Shorten Your Life?
“It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.”―Hans Selye, Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist, author of “The Stress of Life” Let’s see. Michael DeBakey died 2 months short of 100,Denton Cooley was 96,Francis Robicsek – 94,Domingo Liotta – 97,Viking Björk – 90,Alan Carpentier, alive at 89,Thomas Fogarty, alive at 88,Dwight Harken was 83,Norman Shumway 83,Vincent […]
Drama in the Operating Theater
This is the first book after redesigning my writing career. I am almost ready to hit this ‘Publish’ button, but not yet. Before doing it, I want to let my readers know that the book is coming, create some buzz, and then send the story to the world. First, here’s the book cover. I love […]
Miracle of the Beating Human Heart
I remember how I felt seeing an exposed human heart for the first time. I was assisting my mentor with the coronary bypass surgery. After he split the breastbone, and incised the thick layer of the sack enveloping the heart, I saw a slowly contracting glob of muscle. No bigger than a human fist, spirally […]
How I Started My Writing Adventure
Let me tell you a story. Just imagine… Imagine yourself walking in an upscale suburban neighborhood. It’s a late evening. Through the bay window, you can see a well-lit but otherwise darkly furnished room. It looks like an old English library. There is a late-middle-age man sitting in a partially unfolded recliner with his elbows […]
A Misleading, Unnecessary Disclaimer
A disclaimer, frequently found at the beginning of many works of fiction, always puzzled me. “Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental” That’s the fallacy propagated, I […]
A Full Spectrum of Surgeons: from Brainiac to Doer
In my last three posts, I wrote about the two gods in American surgery. Cooley and DeBakey. Two personalities who achieved the pinnacle, still being on the opposite ends of the surgical universe. One was a thinker, a planner, and had vision. The other one was, let’s-operate-and-see-what-happens, man. The Brainiac hired the Doer, and it […]
DeBakey vs Cooley, The Strife of Gods on Olympus
Ostensibly, it was all about the first implantation of an artificial heart. Argentinian surgeon, Domingo Liotta, started to work on the project at the University of Córdoba. And he was not even the first one in the history of medicine. Liotta, after his initial studies were published, was asked by DeBakey to continue his work […]
Michael DeBakey, the Surgeon who Saved His Own Life.
Putting together a puzzle of life, if you start with a piece of an enormous drive to excellence, add a piece of self-discipline, follow it with another piece of resilience, interpose these with a part of impeccable work habits, find a piece of attention to details and intolerance of error, border them with many pieces […]
