The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center - Hardcover

The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center is an ambitious account of the complicated interplay among health care economics, policy and those individuals whose professional lives drive the medical system. Morris fully immerses himself, and the reader, in the complexities of health care; what emerge are riveting and clarifying snapshots of the often unfathomable behemoth we call our health care system...What ultimately brings clarity to this book--and hope for health care reform--are the stories Morris delivers along the way. There is the beleaguered nurse struggling in the middle of the night to help two surgical teams perform an organ procurement, the world-renowned cardiologist whose belief in transparency includes recounting harrowing clinical moments to some 500 colleagues, and the young surgeon, a decade after medical school, working day and night and for hours at a time standing hunched over an operating table "with no breaks for food, water or bathroom" and a salary less than that of "a kid fresh out of law school." Medicine is full of such examples, Morris writes, people "working very hard under great pressure--because it was the right thing to do." -- New York Times Book Review: 10/29/07. Editor's Choice selection 11/04/07