Open Heart: A Cardiac Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table

by Stephen Westaby, Gordon Griffin (Narrator)

In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death

When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be. With astonishing compassion, he recounts harrowing and sometimes hopeful stories from his operating we meet a pulseless man who lives with an electric heart pump, an expecting mother who refuses surgery unless the doctors let her pregnancy reach full term, and a baby who gets a heart transplant-only to die once it's in place.

For readers of Atul Gawande's Being Mortal and of Henry Marsh's Do No Harm, Open Heart offers a soul-baring account of a life spent in constant confrontation with death.

Audible Audio

Published June 20, 2017

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I have previously stated, I am a sucker for a physician memoir. Westaby recounts many cases of cardiac emergencies and those with serious chronic heart conditions that required his expertise to remedy. He was an early user of the artificial heart. Many moving stories here.

[Marcia Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some reason, I have a strong interest in reading books written by physicians of all sorts. Medicine is a fascinating field to me. Apart from TV dramas and movies that feature doctors, nurses, and other care givers, the nitty-gritty of what a cardiac surgeon does was a truly stunning read. Told in distinct chapters, each featuring a different patient with one or more uniquely challenging problems, I read with my own heart in my throat as Dr. Westaby--a bold, innovative, driven, and excellent cardiac surgeon, literally held life in his hands while navigating with meticulous precision (and often too little sleep) the necessary steps to save someone's life; often successful, other times not.

Be warned: apart from the thrill and drama of each patient's story, expect to learn more about the amazing structures of the heart than you'd ever need to know as its powerful work to sustain life is often hampered by birth defects, traumtic injury, poor circulation, disease, terrifying blockages and masses, all in a race against time and the gift of skilled hands.

I highly recommend this book, and may treat myself to other books by this brilliant doctor.