Last Night in the OR: A Transplant Surgeon's Odyssey

by Bud Shaw

For readers of Paul A. Ruggieri's Confessions of a Surgeon and Atul Gawande's Better -- a pioneering surgeon shares memories from a life in one of surgery’s most demanding fields

The 1980s marked a revolution in the field of organ transplants, and Bud Shaw, M.D., who studied under Tom Starzl in Pittsburgh, was on the front lines. Now retired from active practice, Dr. Shaw relays gripping moments of anguish and elation, frustration and reward, despair and hope in his struggle to save patients. He reveals harshly intimate moments of his medical career: telling a patient's husband that his wife has died during surgery; struggling to complete a twenty-hour operation as mental and physical exhaustion inch closer and closer; and flying to retrieve a donor organ while the patient waits in the operating room. Within these more emotionally charged vignettes are quieter ones, too, like growing up in rural Ohio, and being awakened late at night by footsteps in the hall as his father, also a surgeon, slipped out of the house to attend to a patient in the ER.

In the tradition of Mary Roach, Jerome Groopman, Eric Topol, and Atul Gawande, Last Night in the OR is an exhilarating, fast-paced, and beautifully written memoir, one that will captivate readers with its courage, intimacy, and honesty.

Genres: Medical, Nonfiction, Medicine, Memoir, Science, Health Care, Biography Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2015

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ending to this book was the most surprising of any book I have read. Very thought-provoking it explained the whole book. Although, until I read the end, I didn't even think the book even needed an explanation. I might up this to a ten-star book on reflection it was such a satisfying read.

I want to say that those who gave this book low stars really lacked vision and despite the author's excellent writing, they still couldn't perceive the depth of this autobiography/memoir of what seemed on the surface to be just about one of the first liver transplant surgeons job, but was a great deal more. But really I can't say it because as with all books, it's different strokes for ..... and their feelings and reviews are as valid as mine.

Proper review to come.

[Taryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t lie to others to brag about myself, nor out of fear of being found a coward. I lied to protect myself from a far greater reality: I backed away from the cliff because on that day, I recognized I couldn’t control the outcome. In the long term, however, I couldn’t accept the notion that there was anything I couldn’t control. I rewrote my memory of the story to restore my self-­confidence, to avoid facing how little control I ever have over anything. In my lie, I jumped not because I didn’t want to seem cowardly, but because not jumping meant I didn’t have complete control.

In the early 1980's, Dr. Byers “Bud” Shaw, Jr. joined the small ranks of the new and evolving liver transplantation field. He trained under liver transplantation pioneer Thomas Starzl, the man who performed the first liver transplant in 1963 and the first successful liver transplant in 1967. Dr. Shaw became a successful surgeon in his own right and founded the University of Nebraska Medical Center's live transplant program. Last Night in the OR chronicles his life: childhood in Ohio with a surgeon father, his mother's death, training under Dr. Starzl and a cancer diagnosis. It mostly covers the years between 1960-1985 and 2002-2012.

I really liked the chapters about the early days of liver transplantation and the chapters about the legal issues that arose. I appreciated Dr. Shaw's honesty about his doubts and failures. Based on the summary, cover and title, I thought there would be a heavier emphasis on the medical and transplant side of things. I actually got a better sense of Dr. Shaw's work and major accomplishments by reading articles online. The medical chapters seemed so short and left me wanting more, while the hang gliding chapter felt so long! I did like the writing, but the organization was hard for me to get past. It would have helped to have a brief timeline of Dr. Shaw's personal life and career for reference.

I had a really hard time grounding myself in a time or place. The book was divided into three sections: Expectations, Front Lines and Remission. The chapters skipped all over the timeline, but the general trajectory was toward more recent memories. Not only did the chapters jump around through time, the author visited and moved to many different locations. Even some of the chapter names confused me: Initiation II happened earlier in the day than Initiation 1. After I was finished reading, I wrote a quick chapter outline to make sure I wasn't going crazy. Here is a stripped down version of the time and place of just the second section:

Front Lines (Second of Three sections)
Chapters
1. Early 1980s Dangers of Liver Transplants / 1985 Living in Nebraska
2. 1981? First Month in Pittsburgh
3. August 2012 - First named wife, Rebecca (the third one I think)
4. Back in Ohio, author age 9
5. Ohio, author age 13.5
6. Mid-Late 70s? 3rd year of training in Ohio/Works in Yellowstone Park
7. Spring of 1982 Pittsburgh, Leaves first wife Carol/Marries second wife Chris 1984
8. Late Spring 1983 Pittsburgh (Chris back to being girlfriend at this point)
9. ? Pittsburgh
10. Spring of 1974, Ohio
11. 2002? Last Transplant Operation

Most of the chapters read like random anecdotes and memories, without any point or overarching theme. I know there was a point, but I had a hard time getting past the structure. The stories seem to always lack either context, a beginning, a middle or end. Sometimes it felt like there were paragraphs or whole pages missing. People would be mentioned as if I should know who they were, but they had never been mentioned before. Many times interesting parts would be completely glossed over and I would be left with many questions:

1) In the Good Opera chapter, we meet a patient who is about to go through a liver transplant. The surgery is about to start and…boom! The surgery is over and he is giving the husband the outcome, completely skipping the surgery part. What went wrong? The way it was written made it seem like there was something missing.
2) There was one chapter that dealt heavily with one patient who received a transplant at the age of two, but died around the time she got married. Was her death related to the transplant?
3) There are a couple of quick references to Shaw having lymphoma in two chapters of Section 2. In Section 3 there is a chapter where he finds the lump and he worries about it. In the next chapter, two years have passed. That is a really big topic to skip over! The doctor becoming a patient is really interesting to me. There were some aspects of that with feelings of losing control and anxiety issues afterwards, but it was never really deeply explored or effectively connected.

The family life was also really confusing. With a jumpy timeline and three wives, a little specificity would help! There is a "wife" mentioned before anyone is named, but they are not always the same person and we don't know that until Section 2. I think a more well-established family life would have gone a long way to make the timeline easier to follow. Some examples of what confused me:

1) Section 2: In Spring 1982, Dr. Shaw was in a dissatisfying marriage with Carol (mentioned, but not named until now). He starts a romantic involvement with Chris and decides to leave Carol. A few paragraphs later it is the Summer of 1984 and Dr. Shaw is on a trip with Chris. He mentions a wife in this paragraph, but never explicitly mentioned marrying Chris. I guess the mention of "first anniversary" should have been a hint, but I assumed it was a dating anniversary since he had just left his wife three paragraphs ago. His third wife Rebecca is is actually named before Carol and Chris, earlier in the second section. Until I read further along, I thought she was the wife referred to in the first section
2) I thought he was childless until random teenagers started showing up in Section 3. Upon searching, one of Dr. Shaw's colleagues does make a quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention of Dr. Shaw's son around 1985 (Section 2, Chapter 1). I thought this was a weird omission, especially considering the intimate details we were given about the first marriage.

I really like medical memoirs, but this one lacked focus and left me unsatisfied. Dr. Shaw is obviously a very successful and influential surgeon. There were really interesting stories and themes hidden within the pages, but they just weren't easy to find because I was so frustrated with the structure. I think a person would have a more pleasant reading experience if they approached it more as a man reminiscing about his life conversationally. A medical memoir that worked better for me is The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year. I think it is the right mix of personal and professional and is helped by its focus on a specific subject and time frame.

I’ve come to wonder if control was never more than an illusion that I created to allow me to survive. Even so, the notion that someone would die if I wasn’t there to do the right thing had been a valuable, if ultimately quixotic fiber of my being for so long. That’s who I was, after all

(I received this book from Penguin Random House, in exchange for an honest review. This book will be available on September 15, 2015.)

[India M. Clamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surgical transplantation is an exacting science requiring rapt focus. Bud Shaw aka Byers Shaw MD is a protégé of famous Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, who is rightfully termed “the father of liver transplantation.” Writing within mesmerizes, yet in its bare honesty we find a surgeon who undergoes a journey similar to “Dante’s Inferno.”

"Dr. Starzl wasn’t happy...complaining. Shun kept silent and moved like a cat to retract something one way, and, without a word, get Hong or Carlos to do something useful. I thought them telepathic...doubted my own survival.”

---Bud Shaw, MD

Pondering on “Last Night in the OR: A Transplant Surgeon’s Odyssey” is nothing even close to mediocrity. In Shaw’s descriptive “...caught a glimpse of the liver lurking under the diaphragm...a shriveled, knobby greenish-yellow lump...sloshed around in a puddle of blood every time the ventilator fired...”we are pierced---as if prose is Shaw’s vernacular.

On the level with mavens like Henry Marsh (Do No Harm) and the genius of Atul Gawande conveyed is his “Being Mortal.” Dr. Byers Shaw begins as a thirty-one-year-old resident under the “acidic” mouth of Dr. Thomas E. Starzl and matures into being a world class surgeon. Definite read. If expletives offend, this is not for you.

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bud Shaw opens the door to his life wide open. He shares his personal life along with his stellar professional career. The sacrifices transplant surgery demands is unforgiving, it takes a different breed altogether to take on this intense speciality, only an elite few possess the skill, talent required and even fewer can handle the grueling demands mentally, physically, emotionally, their personal life, family and loved ones put through tests as well. A naked glimpse into the making of a transplant surgeon.

Shaw's story is nothing short of candid. He tells of his entry into medicine, his awkward learning curve, the politics, near firings, mistakes, yes, he shares himself openly, appears nothing is held back. His also reflects on his childhood with stories of his family and his boyhood losses and shenanigans. A comprehensive overview of his career and personal struggles and successes is presented.

If you've ever wanted to walk in the shoes of a transplant surgeon privy to what transpires behind the curtain this story will appeal to you as well as a strained personal life filled with numerous ups and downs, health scares and tragedy.

Enlightening, educational and raw. I respect Shaw for opening himself up to show his human side and not just the role of esteemed clinician. I have a better understanding of a physicians ego, power trip, need for adrenaline, and of course God complex. Such intimate and honest insight explains so much about the role, life and behaviors of physicians. Extremely interesting, fascinating to say the least.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought Dr. Shaw's memoir of life as one of the first liver transplant surgeons was honest and engaging. His willingness to explore the interrelationship between his personal life and his professional life and the lessons learned from it were inciteful. I think perhaps some of it would not be as interesting to a nonmedical person but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I received this book for free from netreads but the opinions expressed are my own.

[Jamie Erickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was called an "utterly human admission", and I could not think of anything more true. Through his book, Shaw really does capture the essence of what it means to be human in a way that anyone of any creed can relate to. Feelings of inferiority, persecution, challenges, sadness, and being misunderstood jump out at the reader from the page. The book shows how the nature of humanity really is in its ability to have great selfishness and great compassion at the same time. This book is about a real person, who lives a real life, not some successful surgeon who is writing his own pompous funeral psalm. I highly recommend this book to any reader, because there will be a vignette for everyone that has deep meaning and immeasurable value. Thanks for sharing, Dr.Shaw.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an advanced copy of this book through the Penguin Random House First to Read Program.

Byers (Bud) Shaw is an accomplished liver transplant surgeon and his memoir looks back on this career in the OR. This book contains some interesting anecdotes and tidbits, but they are not fleshed out and the stories often end abruptly. For instance, he recounts a patient who was denied a third liver transplant and mentions briefly how difficult it is to decide who gets organs. Well, that seems to be a given. I would have loved to have read more from him, as a surgeon who was on the front lines of transplant surgeries, about his misgivings, hopes, and suggestions on the process.

But my biggest issue with the book is that it is very disjointed and I cannot figure out any rhyme or reason to why it was constructed the way it was. It was lacking cohesiveness and the jump in timelines were very confusing, often with missing data points. The book felt more like a journal with some vignettes and ideas that could be used as a starting point for a draft, but not a completed book.

A memoir does not need to be written in chronological order to be effective, but if it is compromised of random anecdotes, I think there needs to be an overall narrative or grouping of stories that convey a larger meaning. Or at the very least each anecdote needs to be so well written it can stand on its own, you can draw meaning from it, or its simply entertaining. Many of the chapters in this book did not do that. There were some major threads in this book: his education and career as a surgeon, his mother's cancer and death, and his father's influence (he was also a surgeon). But these threads are scattered throughout the book, punctuated by other stories that I wasn't sure how they fit in or what we were supposed to take away from them.

In the end I felt that the structure of the book got in the way of what could have been an interesting memoir. 2/5 stars.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bud Shaw interweaves his story of growing up in a small town in Ohio as the son of the town’s beloved doctor, with his career as a transplant surgeon in Pittsburgh. Training under transplant pioneer, Dr. Thomas Starzl in the 1980’s, Dr. Shaw was able to learn and acquire invaluable skills. He matured from a young, eager and sometimes overly confident resident, to a highly respected transplant surgeon in his own right. Dr. Shaw’s honest and moving account about the early days of liver transplant surgery is fascinating. The parts of the book detailing his personal life, however, were sometimes too long, disjointed and drawn out.
Thank you to Penguin Publishing and First to Read for the opportunity to read the advanced copy of this memoir which is due to be released on September 15, 2015.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I' m going to hate myself today because I stayed up all night finishing this book. Dr. Shaw's autobiography smacks of honesty.

He recounts the highs and lows of both his personal life and his successful career as a preeminent liver transplant surgeon. He exposes incompetence in the medical profession and describes how dedicated physicians, techs, and nurses work incredibly long hours under tremendous stress to save lives.

Poignantly, he describes his mother's death from lung cancer when he was a preteen, and his father's demise from a combination of old age and many medical problems.

He lived and worked in Omaha and was undoubtedly one of the physicians who put the city on the map as a transplant center.

[Gin Eckert · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 ✨ I found this book interesting but if you don’t work in surgery, specifically transplant surgery, it’s likely that this book would fall flat. Last Night in the OR is essentially a memoir of one of the pioneers of liver transplantation, Dr. Bud Shaw. What I liked about it was hearing his surgery stories and learning more about the history of liver transplantation. He is definitely full of himself though and the writing is chaotic and disorganized. The writing is not linear and every other chapter he’s married to someone different and he’s bouncing around from childhood to med school to retirement to fellowship back to childhood and med school again. Hopefully he was a better surgeon than he is a memoirist.

[Savannah Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a young woman interested in the medical field from afar but completely unskilled in the medical expertise, it is sometimes a game and sometimes a struggle to find books or television shows that will both keep me interested and teach me.

Unfortunately, Bud Shaw's memoir "Last Night In The OR" did not do either of these for me. While I appreciated his honesty and anecdotes, the book was much more of a random collection of factoids and stories than a cohesive memoir. Because the book is told in the first-person point of view and is an account of the author's life, I recognize that everything was portrayed as honestly as it could be. However, I think a really important part about reading is being excited about doing so. This book never really grabbed me and excited me. The medical terminology was too thick for anybody other than professionals to understand so often I felt left out of comprehending the stories. Another huge issue for me was the lack of chronology. Each chapter was so short that they were less of chapters and more of separate pieces of information. That said, there was no timeline to this book. Shaw would relay something that happened in childhood, fast forward to his second wife, then go back to his first relationship, then to the present, then to his operating room days. I think if these stories were told with a beginning (childhood), middle (days as a surgeon), and end (latest occurrences), the novel would be a much smoother read and allow readers to engage in all the sincere confessions Shaw provides.

[Laura Lacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this memoir. It was fascinating to hear about the beginnings of transplant surgery - Shaw's recounting of wading through blood whilst attempting cutting-edge surgery was honest and vivid. These surgeons were brave and arrogant and Shaw is brutally honest about this. The highs and lows are emotionally related.

The whole memoir is heartbreakingly honest. Shaw's descriptions of his family's illnesses and grief woven into the story of his careers triumphs and difficulties gave the biography context and make the work as a whole more relatable.

This is a bold and candid piece.

[Patti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disjointed. Still not sure who he was married to or who he was sleeping with or who was his girlfriend.

Trashy in parts (swearing and such) and very dry and clinical in others. Felt like I was reading two different books that were somehow mashed together.

Didn't do enough with descriptions of others, and made you wonder what he imagined and what really happened.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a mishmash of some very interesting information about transplants, a bunch of mistakes the author made, and vignettes of his personal life that also highlight his mistakes and deficiencies. It skips around in time and space, and there's often no continuity between one chapter and the next. It's almost as if each chapter was written as a stand-alone essay.

In many chapters, he is baring his soul, laying out how his errors or attitudes hurt other people or hurt his own career. Oddly, he just exposes those errors but doesn't comment on them, to the point where I wasn't sure how much he understood how he could have done better. I also couldn't tell (over a number of anecdotes throughout the book) whether he adored his mentor or hated him for how mean he could be. Probably both, I guess. He also seems to think of himself as a mixture of screw-up and omniscient.

Other oddities also turned me off. In the second chapter, he groups together some of his mentor's hospital rounds entourage as "the Asians" and describes how their lab coats were too big on them (Asians are small, right?). Some of the "Asians" enter into the book later too, kind of as respected colleagues, but talking in cringeworthy pidgin English.

He doesn't give much of a timeline about his marriages, apparently three, and none of the wives have much in the way of identifying characteristics; they're mostly just "my wife." Divorce is mentioned I think twice, in passing; it doesn't sound like it was traumatic for him. Another cringeworthy section is where he complains about his wife (the first) not wanting to have sex, starting with a jarring "I wanted desperately to fuck my wife." He doesn't seem to have insight into how he might not have been a considerate enough partner for her to want to have sex with him. So he finds another woman in the hospital, and as soon as they have sex, he leaves the wife and moves in with her. It's okay though, because he and the wife had agreed that they would just stay together through his training. Huh?

Another chapter starts "Seventeen years to the day after my father married the drunk who would become my stepmother..." He previously told the story about how this woman taught him to be a scrub tech, and he says nothing else about her subsequently. Perhaps she was a horrible person, but without details about that, that phrase was gratuitously insulting.

Even with all this, I don't dislike the author or the book. The liver transplant stories are interesting. I think that the author was a very good transplant surgeon, but the stories that are included are mostly ones in which medical personnel made life-threatening mistakes. I learned that the surgery can take a long, long time, that there's lots and lots of blood involved, and that doctors make bad mistakes sometimes but are miracle workers other times. The writing wasn't bad, including parts about his training and childhood. I've never wanted to do hang gliding, but his description of how it felt made me understand the appeal. A good edit could have organized the various subjects and timelines into something coherent and done something about the undertones of blame/shame.

[Kayla Kirkbride · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some interesting anecdotes, but the timeline jumped around so much it was somewhat difficult to follow. I also don’t think the stories he chose to tell, especially about his father, were all that appropriate.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand other reviewers comments on the disjointed sequence of stories - definitely felt like it was jumping around a bit and I struggled to workout a timeline. None the less I absolutely LOVED this book - as a nurse in theatre I appreciate the brutal honesty of his experiences and thought His stories of inside the OR as well as the feelings and experiences one feels caring for patients were spot on and something I think many people in the medical field particularly in theatre can relate to.

[Angie Reisetter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm at a loss on how to describe this book in an efficient way. There are stories from Shaw's career as a transplant surgeon. They are mostly stories of failure, as if he's contemplating the ones that bother him over time. There are stories of the people he worked with in the OR. There are also stories of his personal life. All are told with a simple narrative style that is fairly engaging.

But the organization of the book lost me. He jumps to and fro in his life, back, forward, back again but not so far. But he never gives us the linear bio that's needed in the intro to allow him to do it. He had three wives (serially), and in one story when he referred to his wife, I literally had no idea which one he meant. Does that matter? It doesn't really make a difference in the story, but it was hard to keep track. He also had other family members coming and going with little intro. Over 200 pages in was when we learn he has kids, and he's spent some serious narrative time in that part of his life already. His first mention of his own cancer is almost passing. Wait a minute, did he just say...?!?

It's as if all his stories start in the middle, with no beginnings and very few endings. I was really lost, and it gave the impression that his family and personal life wasn't all that important, and yet he spent a lot of time talking about it. There are three titled sections of the book, but I couldn't figure out how the heck they were organized or why stories were in there. There's a random story about his sister's childhood concussion in the second story. I still have no idea why what or several other stories are even in the book.

So... if you're looking for some stories about life in the OR, especially in the early days of liver transplants, this is the book for you. Go for it. Just don't get hung up on making sense of the overall story line.

Got a free copy of this from First to Read.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to thank Penguin Group Blue Rider Press, NetGalley, and Goodreads First Reads Giveaway for giving me an opportunity to read this book.

In 1981, Doctor Bud Shaw began his two year fellowship with Dr. Thomas Starzl, the father of liver transplantation and the most renowned in the world at the time. Specializing in liver transplants was rarely done, as most surgeons thought that the process of removing and replacing this organ was akin to torture. Although he initially wanted to perform kidney and pancreatic transplants, the complex and complicated liver became Dr. Shaw's calling. This type of transplant is tricky, as the donor liver cannot survive for long without proper blood flow restored. With many delicate vessels, veins, and arteries to attach, only the most skilled surgeons are successful.

Although I found the medical and surgical aspects of this book absoluting riveting, the private family stories in between brought the author down to a personal level. Last Night in the OR had promise and some final editing would have made a world of difference. The lack of organization made the book difficult to read, as there was a lot of information disclosed in random order. It was like trying to make an entree without the list of ingredients or the directions. The author would give the end result, like the last day in the OR, but not tell how he got there. Dr. Shaw's contributions to medicine are numerous and I wish him the very best of luck in his new chapter of life.

[Bruce Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book no one else could have written. Dr. Shaw was there to witness the early, horrifically challenging days of liver transplantation and gives the reader an inside look at the pioneers,warts and all. These were the days of male-dominated, pyramidal 24/7/365 training programs without any hint of work hour restrictions.

He spares none of the people he knows, respects, and loves (living and dead), saving some of the harshest reflections for himself. The essays offer glimpses into moments of insight, challenge, despair, and triumph.

It is not an easy read (noted by other reviewers) but I was drawn to his honesty, his willingness to share this fading moment of surgical history, and his "show-don't tell" style that reveals how his upbringing and training made him the surgeon and person he grew to be.

[Britney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to this book being that I work in the medical field and with a surgeon. But I was kind disappointed. I love the parts about the stories of what happened in the OR and how it affected him, but thought at times he was rambling about nothing. I do believe that you need some back story to understand what led him to where he is at, but some of it was unnecessary. We don't need to know how long it had been since he had sex with his wife and what he did to make up for it. What did it have to do with the memoir. It was choppy going from story to story, instead of flowing nicely into the next. For the most part it was good, but could of been better.

[Amy Castor · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the book, the writing jumped around a lot, and I mean, a lot. One minute the author is telling you about his boyhood raising ducks, the next, he is attending to his father in a nursing home. Later you read that he has lymphoma, but the details are never clear on how the disease impacted his career or what he went through during the treatment. It is as if big sections of his life are left out. If I were an editor and someone had submitted this manuscript, I would have said, good material here, but let's work on a few things and try to develop it more. This was an enjoyable read, but the writing could have been much better.

[ҞΞℓβϓ · Rating 4 out of 5]

As open and honest as it gets

Dr. Shaw leaves no portion of his life, both personal and professional, untouched in Last Night in the OR: A Transplant Surgeon's Odyssey.

If you are looking for a book that delves into the medical field in great detail, you may want to look somewhere else. But for an all encompassing look into the life of a storied surgeon, go no further. This is the book for you (and I highly recommend it).



I received this book through the first-reads giveaway program. Thank you Plume Books. To get a glimpse into the life of a surgeon of this caliber was a true pleasure.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this memoir would deal more with medical issues. It glossed over items that should have been important. But, we have to look at it this way, it was a first time outing in the memoir pool. Maybe in the next books the writing style will improve and be more medically focused. For I like a good medical memoir and books about medicine.

[Aletha Pagett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that will not permit itself to be put down and is filled with honesty so transparent that it made me cringe. A fascinating exploration of a surgeon running from personal demons and chasing immortality. A great read! I received this through Goodreads.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting look at his private and professional life.It gives a better look at transplant surgery and the process, while showing the human side of the people who daily help others.

*I received a copy from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a review*

[Kristina Kok · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love medical memoirs but I did not like this one! It was completely disjointed and hard to follow. He gives way to much detail regarding names and characteristics of doctors he worked with. It read more like a disjointed diary than a memoir by a leading transplant physician.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating look at the life of transplant surgeon. I learned a lot, quick read, worth it!
-k

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

a realistic insight of a surgeon's life

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did like this although at times it jumped around a lot chronologically and that was difficult. The story of a liver transplant surgeon