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Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles [Hardcover]

Keith Black (Author), Arnold Mann (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)


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Book Description

March 25, 2009 0446581097 978-0446581097 1
Welcome to tiger country: the treacherous territory where a single wrong move by a brain surgeon can devastate-or end-a patient's life. This is the terrain world-renowned neurosurgeon Keith Black, MD, enters every day to produce virtual medical miracles. Now, in BRAIN SURGEON, Dr. Black invites readers to shadow his breathtaking journeys into the brain as he battles some of the deadliest and most feared tumors known to medical science. Along the way, he shares his unique insights about the inner workings of the brain, his unwavering optimism for the future of medicine, and the extraordinary stories of his patients-from ministers and rock stars to wealthy entrepreneurs and uninsured students-whom he celebrates as the real heroes.

BRAIN SURGEON offers a window into one man's remarkable mind, revealing the anatomy of the unflinching confidence of this master surgeon, whose personal journey brought him from life as a young African-American boy growing up in the civil rights era South to the elite world of neurosurgery. Through Dr. Black's white-knuckle descriptions of some of the most astonishing medical procedures performed today, he reveals the beauty and marvel of the human brain and the strength and heroism of his patients who refuse to see themselves as victims. Ultimately, BRAIN SURGEON is an inspiring story of the struggle to overcome odds-whether as a man, a doctor, or a patient.

"BRAIN SURGEON is an inspirational book about true heroes-readers will marvel at Keith Black's achievements both as a doctor and as a man, and will be in awe of his patients' courage and will to survive." --Denzel Washington

I often get asked who the best doctor is in the world for various ailments. Truth is, it's a hard question. When it comes to brain tumors, however, the answer is pretty clear: Keith Black. He is the doctor people find when all the other doctors have given up. He is that guy. This book is about the heroic patients he has already helped and saved. If you want a rare, behind-the-curtain look at the life of one of the most pre-eminent neurosurgeons in the world, pick up Brain Surgeon. And Keith, from one brain surgeon to another: thank you for honoring our profession. Well done. --Sanjay Gupta, MD, Chief Medical Correspondent, CNN and New York Times bestselling author of Chasing Life





Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Black, chair of the department of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, reflects on his extraordinary life and career. As an African-American growing up in Alabama and Ohio, Black benefited from the emphasis his scholarly parents put on learning: I was brought up to believe there was nothing that I could not do, and he published his first scientific paper at age 17 and went on to pioneer blood-brain barrier research to enable chemotherapy drugs to reach brain tumors directly. Introducing the reader to his colleagues and patients, Black tours the interior of the brain with detailed accounts of delicate surgical procedures: Under the microscope I could see the delicate latticework of blood vessels covering the brainstem, all of which absolutely had to be preserved. Documenting the risks and rewards of the procedures he performs, he also examines racial hurdles he had to leap to become a neurosurgeon. Black is equally skilled as an author, alternating incisive writing about incisions with his personal memoir, insightful and inspirational. (Mar. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Black, chair of the neurosurgery department of Los Angeles’ prestigious Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, didn’t get where he is by having influential connections or being born to wealth and privilege. Well . . . not privilege in the traditional sense. But he does indeed feel privileged to have had parents who ignored the social barriers facing African Americans in the deep South in the 1960s and motivated both their sons to excel beyond external expectations. That’s why, when he faced a bigoted department head at the University of Michigan Medical School, who would deny him entrance to the neurosurgery department, Black was prepared to overcome those biases by means of superior knowledge and performance. He went on to achieve a stellar career in research and neurosurgery, first at UCLA and then at Cedars-Sinai. His story, coupled with harrowing accounts of a handful of his patients, is cleanly written, inspirational, and a superb fit for the times in which we live. --Donna Chavez

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Grand Central Life & Style; 1 edition (March 25, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0446581097
  • ISBN-13: 978-0446581097
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 8.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #506,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
5 star:
 (13)
4 star:
 (7)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
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1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars DR. BLACK SIMPLIFIES THE COMPLICATED, March 13, 2009
This review is from: Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles (Hardcover)
BRAIN SURGEON

A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles

Keith Black, MD with Arnold Mann

Wellness Central

Hachette Book Group

ISBN: 978-0-446-58109-7

$24.99

Reviewer: Annie Slessman

Not being in the medical field, I expected BRAIN SURGEON, A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles by Keith Black, MD with Arnold Mann to be a hard, dry read. I could not have been more wrong! Dr. Black and Arnold Mann have managed to take a subject matter - brain surgery - from the mysterious to something easily understood by everyone.

Dr. Black uses a series of stories about his patients and their courage and surprising stamina to relate his experiences and inform the reader about the mysteries of the brain. Each story explains the many types of brain cancer and the degree of difficulty that each occurrence requires in its treatment.

For instance, my own daughter was recently diagnosed with a tumor in her liver. We were told the tumor was not cancerous. She had only taken a MRI - how can they tell the tumor is not cancerous by an image test? Well, I got my answer when Dr. Black explained that a tumor which is cancerous absorbs more of the dye making it more prominent in the MRI. Thank you, Dr. Black, I found your book and its ability to explain things in simple terms very comforting.

Dr. Black, early in his career leans toward cardiology. When he took his first neuro-anatomy class, he was hooked. As he states, "the bottom line is that the heart is just a muscle, a pump, to be sure, it's a very elegant muscle and a great pump, but it's still a pump. The brain, on the other hand, is the ultimate reduction of self."

When explaining a specific treatment he likens his vaccine to that of a warrior fighting a terrorist (cancer). This vaccine seeks out the bad cancer cells and "presents" them to the body's killer T-cells. Killer T-cells are a special variety of white blood cells, or lymphocytes. When the vaccine presents these bad cells to the Killer T-cells they know to attack. Don't you absolutely love this analogy? Most everyone can understand this process with the use of this analogy.

Quite often, I donate my review books to the local library. It is my way of giving the gift of knowledge. However, I just cannot bring myself to donate this book. It will remain in my own library.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational story of medicine and faith, April 11, 2009
This review is from: Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles (Hardcover)
Dr. Keith Black is the chairman of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who specializes in the surgical and medical treatment of brain tumors. He has gained widespread recognition for his clinical skill in treating brain cancers, and has been featured in Time Magazine, CBS News and PBS' The History Makers.

Brain Surgeon is an enjoyable and inspiring story about his career, obstacles he overcame along the way, battles and controversies he has encountered in providing the best care for his patients, and the advances of clinical brain tumor research that are allowing patients to live longer and, in some cases, making disease remission possible.

Although the story centers on Dr. Black's impressive accomplishments, equal billing is given to several patients, who he claims are the true heroes of this book. They are fully engaged in the treatment plan, and the trust and faith that they have in Dr. Black is matched by his respect and desire to help them as best he can.

The book is written for a lay audience, and would be appropriate for high school and college students interested in medicine and neurosurgery, or anyone else interested in stories of faith and inspiration.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book should be made into a movie!, March 25, 2009
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This review is from: Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles (Hardcover)
Being a patient of his probably makes me an unfair favorable bias towards this great doctor. I read the book in one sitting. I could'nt put it down! It reads like a great movie. Not hard for non medical types like myself. A very interesting life story and everyday life of a top neurosurgeon is revealed here. I highly reccommend it! You wont be dissapionted
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
You number one!" William Tao exclaimed, abruptly standing up and throwing his hands over his head as I entered the examining room. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
thoughtful warriors, dendritic vaccine, brain tumor center, clival chordoma, cancer stem cells, tumor capsule, whole brain radiation, maitake mushrooms
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Gerard Kelly, Glenn Rhoades, William Tao, Tiger Country, Outsmarting the Tumor, Love Affair, Milagros Reid, Optimistic Alternatives, United States, Elishadie Tezera, University of Michigan, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Cellular Signs, Scott Erdman, Thomas Kelly, Shaker Heights, Continuing the Fight, Breaking Barriers, Fighting the Terrorist, Johnnie Cochran, National Institutes of Health, University of Pennsylvania, Manhattan Project, The Doctor's Dilemma
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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