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The Making of a Surgeon: The Story of the First Heart and Lung Transplants and the Murder of Medgar Evers
Segregation was a way of life in the 1960s, especially in the South when O. Gordon Robinson Jr. was completing his surgical residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.The Ku Klux Klan was a force to be reckoned with at the time, and Robinson chronicles the events he witnessed as well as the civil rights movement of the time against the backdrop of completing his medical education.His main focus is on the daily lives and work of the residents, including the innovative organ-transplant research led by Dr. James Hardy.One of Robinson’s initial assignments was to transplant a kidney from one dog to another, and from the recipient dog, one of his kidneys to the first dog. The helpers anesthetized the animals, prepped and draped them, and started IV fluids if necessary. Dr. Hardy was a real pioneer in the field of transplantation, and as time went on, it became obvious that he and his crew were preparing to do heart and lung transplants on humans—something that had never been done before.Whether you’re interested in life during the civil rights movement, medical education or both, you’ll enjoy The Making of a Surgeon.
152 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 12, 2018
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July 15, 2023
What an odd book. First of all, I’ll say it’s independently published so one would not expect it to be super published, but my critiques are much more about the emphasis than the mechanics.
- where does the line between historical fact and offensiveness lie in regards to language? Dr. Gordon was at the largest hospital in Mississippi in the 1960s, but the continued use of the “n word” to refer to someone, and as part of reconstructed quotes is very off putting and feels like the author too a little too much joy in its use.
- where’s that line in regaling tales of actions that would amount to sexual harassment in 2023? Surely, men were much more open about their disrespect and objectification of women in the past than now, but where does the reconstructing of these details become simply offensive?
- I work with and interact with the Medgar Evers story on a daily basis, and to include the assassination of Medgar Evers in the title is misleading. The book covers that event for about 1 page of a 136 page book.
Overall, I won’t be reading this again, nor would I recommend it. I would not recommend for young readers, and I would have ethical concerns recommending it to others. The book raises questions it never intends to raise, and leaves the reader feeling rather uncomfortable by the end of its 136 pages.
- where does the line between historical fact and offensiveness lie in regards to language? Dr. Gordon was at the largest hospital in Mississippi in the 1960s, but the continued use of the “n word” to refer to someone, and as part of reconstructed quotes is very off putting and feels like the author too a little too much joy in its use.
- where’s that line in regaling tales of actions that would amount to sexual harassment in 2023? Surely, men were much more open about their disrespect and objectification of women in the past than now, but where does the reconstructing of these details become simply offensive?
- I work with and interact with the Medgar Evers story on a daily basis, and to include the assassination of Medgar Evers in the title is misleading. The book covers that event for about 1 page of a 136 page book.
Overall, I won’t be reading this again, nor would I recommend it. I would not recommend for young readers, and I would have ethical concerns recommending it to others. The book raises questions it never intends to raise, and leaves the reader feeling rather uncomfortable by the end of its 136 pages.
Displaying 1 of 1 review