In a series of essays that progress from the tiniest earth dwellers to the most far flung celestial bodies—considering the similarity of gods to donkeys, the inexorability of love and vines, the relations of exploding stars to exploding sea cucumbers—Amy Leach rekindles a vital communion with the wild world, dormant for far too long. Things That Are is not specifically of the animal, the human, or the phenomenal; it is a book of wonder, one the reader cannot help but leave with their perceptions both expanded and confounded in delightful ways.

    These dramatic first-person essays detail spectacular serendipities, impossible cures, breathtaking resuscitations, extraordinary awakenings, and recovery from unimaginable disasters. Still other essays give voice to cases in which the physical aspects were less dramatic than the emotional aspects, yet miraculous and transformational for everyone involved. Positive impacts left in the wake of even the gravest of tragedies, profound triumphs of heart and spirit. Preeminent physicians in many specialties, including deans and department heads on the faculties of the top university medical schools in the country describe, in everyday language and with moving testimony, their very personal reactions to these remarkable clinical experiences. Among the extraordinary cases poignantly recounted by the physicians witnessing them: A priest visiting a hospitalized patient went into cardiac arrest on the elevator, which opened up on the cardiac floor, right at the foot of the cardiac specialist, at just the right moment.A tiny premature baby dying from irreversible lung disease despite the most intensive care who recovered almost immediately after being taken from his hospital bed and placed on his mother's chest.President John F. Kennedy's son Patrick, who died shortly after birth, and whose disease eventually led to research that saved generations of babies.A nine-year-old boy who was decapitated in a horrific car accident but survived without neurological damage.A woman who conceived and delivered a healthy baby—despite having had both of her fallopian tubes surgically removed.A young man whose only hope for survival was a heart transplant, but just at the moment he developed a potentially fatal complication making a transplant impossible, his own heart began healing itself.A teenage girl near death after contracting full-blown rabies who became the first patient ever to recover from that disease after an unexpected visit by Timothy Dolan, the man who would go on to become the Archbishop of New York.A Manhattan window-washer who fell 47 stories—and not only became the only person ever to survive a fall from that height, but went on to make a full recovery. Miracles We Have Seen is a book of inspiration and optimism, and a compelling glimpse into the lives of physicians—their humanity and determined devotion to their patients and their patients' families. It reminds us that what we don't know or don't understand isn‘t necessarily cause for fear, and can even be reason for hope

    Exploring nature as a tool for learning about the spiritual self, this title offers a narrative of the author's wilderness adventures, and provides exercises for turning off the conscious mind and achieving enlightenment.

    Dr. Langston discovered that these people had all used a tainted form of heroin. Using fetal tissue transplant, two of the addicts recovered, garnering world-wide press coverage. This is the story behind the headlines.

    Welshman has had a lifetime filled with exciting encounters with animals. As a lad in Nigeria, he is attacked by soldier ants and terrified by a snake in his treehouse. His treasured companion, Poucher, an African bush dog, prevents him and his mother from being savaged by baboons. Once qualified as a vet Malcolm has to attempt life-saving surgery on his beloved parrot. On a road trip across the Sahara, there is a tussle with a lame camel and the operation on an Ostrich gored by an antelope. Settling back in West Sussex in England, he tackles a cow that’s got stuck in a tree, wily cats and battles with cunning badgers and baby bats. He shares all these fascinating experiences in this gently humorous memoir that will guarantee to tug at the heart strings while bringing a smile to your face. Anyone who loves animals will be enchanted and enthralled.‘A witty take on a young vet’s life that pet lovers will find endearing.’ – Bel Mooney, Daily Mail.‘A joyful read full of animals and fun.’ – Celia Haddon, author and former Daily Telegraph columnist.‘Bursting with exotic creatures and eccentric characters, this touching memoir makes for a spellbinding read where the author’s love of animals shines through.’ – Jenny Itzcovitz, editor of Sixtyplussurfers.co.uk.

    In other words, by all of us."--Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of Love, Medicine and MiraclesRule One for the neurologist in residence: "You ain't never the same when the air hits your brain." In this fascinating book, Dr. Frank Vertosick brings that fact to life through intimate portraits of patients and unsparing yet gripping descriptions of brain surgery.With insight, humor, and poignancy, Dr. Vertosick chronicles his remarkable evolution from naive young intern to world-class neurosurgeon, where he faced, among other challenges, a six week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22 caliber bullet lodged in his skull. In candid detail, WHEN THE AIR HITS YOUR BRAIN illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room."Riveting."--Publishers Weekly

    But after falling backwards into the specialty, Dr. Fulkerson found neurosurgery to be a field filled with joy, sadness, a little humor, and courageous and inspiring patients.In an honest and compelling retelling of his long and winding road to train and then practice as a pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Fulkerson guides others through his journey from medical school to service on a small military base, through residency training, and finally, to a practice in a highly specialized children's hospital. The journey reveals the dramatic swings of emotions experienced by both patients and doctors in an increasingly hostile medical environment. Dr. Fulkerson also shares stories of dedicated professors who train medical students and resident surgeons to care for the tiniest neurosurgical patients.Nothing Good Happens at ... The Baby Hospital offers a compelling glimpse into the joys, tragedies, and hopeful moments that surround the highly specialized and sometimes silly world of pediatric neurosurgery.

    Medical Center.

    Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power? The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity, but about maintaining identity, autonomy, and voice.In our networked and image-saturated lives, the notion of disappearing has never been more alluring. Today, we are relentlessly encouraged, even conditioned, to reveal, share, and promote ourselves. The pressure to be public comes not just from our peers, but from vast and pervasive technology companies that want to profit from patterns in our behavior. A lifelong student and observer of the natural world, Busch sets out to explore her own uneasiness with this arrangement, and what she senses is a widespread desire for a less scrutinized way of life--for invisibility. Writing in rich painterly detail about her own life, her family, and some of the world's most exotic and remote places, she savors the pleasures of being unseen. Discovering and dramatizing a wonderful range of ways of disappearing, from virtual reality goggles that trick the wearer into believing her body has disappeared to the way Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway finds a sense of affiliation with the world around her as she ages, Busch deliberates on subjects new and old with equal sensitivity and incisiveness.How to Disappear is a unique and exhilarating accomplishment, overturning the dangerous modern assumption that somehow fame and visibility equate to success and happiness. Busch presents a field guide to invisibility, reacquainting us with the merits of remaining inconspicuous, and finding genuine alternatives to a life of perpetual exposure. Accessing timeless truths in order to speak to our most urgent contemporary problems, she inspires us to develop a deeper appreciation for personal privacy in a vast and intrusive world.

    This trusted classic delivers comprehensive coverage of the field's must-know basic science and clinical topics in a clear, easy-to-understand presentation. Indispensable for coursework, exam review, and as a clinical refresher, this trusted text has been extensively updated to reflect the latest research and developments.Here's why Clinical Anesthesiology is the best anesthesiology resource:NEW full-color presentationNEW chapters on the most pertinent topics in anesthesiology, including anesthesia outside of the operating room and a revamped peripheral nerve blocks chapter that details ultrasound-guided regional anesthesiaUp-to-date discussion of all relevant areas within anesthesiology, including equipment, pharmacology, regional anesthesia, pathophysiology, pain management, and critical careCase discussions promote application of the concepts to real-world practiceNumerous tables and figures encapsulate important information and facilitate memorization

    A who's who of pathology experts delivers the most dependable, current, and complete coverage of today's essential pathology knowledge. At the same time, masterful editing and a practical organization make mastering every concept remarkably easy. Online access via Student Consult includes self-assessment and review questions, interactive case studies, downloadable images, videos, and a virtual microscope that lets you view slides at different magnifications. The result remains the ideal source for an optimal understanding of pathology. Offers the most authoritative and comprehensive, yet readable coverage available in any pathology textbook, making it ideal for USMLE or specialty board preparation as well as for course work. Includes access to the complete contents online via Student Consult, along with self-assessment and review questions, over 100 interactive clinical case studies, videos, and a virtual microscope that lets users view slides at different magnifications.Delivers a state-of-the-art understanding of the pathologic basis of disease through completely updated coverage, including the latest cellular and molecular biology.Demonstrates every concept visually with over 1,600 full-color photomicrographs and conceptual diagrams - many revised for even better quality.Facilitates learning with an outstanding full-color, highly user-friendly design.

    Every day she tries to bring care and comfort to those reaching the end of their lives and to help make dying more bearable. Rachel's training was put to the test in 2017 when her beloved GP father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She learned that nothing - even the best palliative care - can sugar-coat the pain of losing someone you love. And yet, she argues, in a hospice there is more of what matters in life - more love, more strength, more kindness, more joy, more tenderness, more grace, more compassion - than you could ever imagine. For if there is a difference between people who know they are dying and the rest of us, it is simply this: that the terminally ill know their time is running out, while we live as though we have all the time in the world. Dear Life is a book about the vital importance of human connection, by the doctor we would all want by our sides at a time of crisis. It is a love letter - to a father, to a profession, to life itself.

     It is a remarkable portrait, too, of the life of a psychiatric asylum--the sort of community in which, for better and for worse, hundreds of thousands of people lived out their lives.More than four hundred abandoned suitcases filled with patients’ belongings were found when Willard Psychiatric Center closed in 1995 after 125 years of operation. They are skillfully examined here and compared to the written record to create a moving—and devastating—group portrait of twentieth-century American psychiatric care.

    Dementia, though serious, is not without its funny moments, and Max soon realizes that one of the benefits of working in the memory clinic is that patients frequently forget to turn up! But the patients who do show are charming and lovable—from Mr. Brownlee, a removal man with Mad Cow Disease who removes furniture from the ward in the belief that he's still at work, to Valerie, a senior whose dementia has convinced her that Max is her son. As we follow Max on his hospital rounds, we fight with him to save the A&E ward from shutting down, to expose and improve on the deficient care in private nursing homes, to defend his friend's honor after she's assaulted by an older man, and to ordain the marriage of a gay couple in their 80s.

    We witness scenes of passionate, even violent intensity that give rise to meditations on eros and literature, the solitariness of travel, and the poetics of place.These individual pieces, most of which first appeared in The London Review of Books and won an international cult following, are by turns "poignant, surreal, down home and lyrical, a mixture of qualities that inheres in his language with uncommon delicacy and effect" (Leonard Michaels). Together they make up an intellectual and emotional autobiography on the run. The book's final section, about Kleinzahler's adored, doomed older brother, is unforgettable, and since its appearance last year in the LRB, has already entered the literature as one of the most moving contemporary memoirs.