Thursday, August 17, 2017

Fragile Lives - Stephen Westaby

Professor Stephen Westaby is a prominent UK cardiac surgeon.  In this book he tells us about his own life and family and how the death of his grandparents led him to deciding to become a doctor.  He has lots of fascinating stories about his training years.

Most of the book though is devoted to the heart patients that he has looked after over the years - the successes and the failures.  He started his training when cardiac surgery was a young speciality and there have been many advances is surgery techniques and tools available.   I could have listened to his stories endlessly as the were all so inspirational. 5/5

2 comments:

sallyhicks said...

This sounds so interesting. It will go at the top of my list. It must be really good for you to give it a 5/5. When I first went to varsity I remember standing in awe as I went into the library and then I had a feeling of only what could be called dispair when I realised if I lived for 100 years I would never get to read all the great books they had there. The library was badly damaged in the earthquake.

John Bellen said...

Heart surgery must indeed be one of the aspects of medicine that has progressed a great deal in the last thirty years or so. I think I recall hearing about Dr Christiaan Barnard when I was a boy, and how unusual heart transplants were. Now, though they are hardly routine, they are much more common, as are many kinds of transplants. Astonishing.