The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center [Hardcover]

Charles R. Morris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2007

An over-the-shoulder look at a major heart surgery center, with gripping accounts from the OR to the boardroom.

Americans now spend more money on hearts than on new passenger cars. To understand this remarkable trend, Charles R. Morris "embedded" himself with a surgical team at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, one of the world's premier cardiac surgery and transplant centers. Given unprecedented access, Morris witnessed sophisticated operations and observed the tense meetings where surgeons relentlessly criticize their own performance. In thrilling detail, Morris recounts a late-night against-the-clock "harvest run" to secure a precious transplantable organ; the heart-breaking story of a child's failed transplant; a trainee surgeon's brutal daily regimen; and much more. Along the way, Morris documents the fifty years of research and hundreds of millions of dollars that have been expended on creating a reliable mechanical heart, and he steps back to reflect on how doctors think and how they judge each other, what is really driving health care costs, and the future of health care policy in America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

To get a nuts-and-bolts understanding of heart surgeons—from the decisions they make in the operating room to the impact of colleagues, patients and pharmaceutical companies on their jobs—Morris (The Tycoons) embedded himself for six months in the elite cardiac surgery center at Columbia-Presbyterian hospital in New York City. Unlike some noncardiac surgeries where music blares in the operating room, an aortic valve replacement for a retired pharmacy executive, says Morris, is a solemn affair, the calm briefly interrupted only when the patient fibrillates, his heart muscle fibers fluttering irregularly. The author finds it exhilarating to watch as a surgeon basically built... a new heart for a five-day-old baby with a major heart malformation. But even technical marvels can't save a desperately ill four-year-old girl after a heart transplant. The reserved Craig Smith, the unit's head, who gained national fame when he performed a quadruple bypass on former President Clinton, impresses readers with his skill and deep concern for his patients. From detailing the workings of the heart's chambers and valves to the bald economics of cardiac surgery—including Smith's income ($1.5 million in 2004), the hospital's billing and collection procedures and forecasts on universal health insurance—Morris masterfully breaks down complex jargon, procedures and policies for a lay audience. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Charles R. Morris, the author of The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, The Tycoons, and The Cost of Good Intentions, has written for the New York Times and The Atlantic, among other publications. He lives in New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (October 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393065626
• ISBN-13: 978-0393065626
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #475,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Surgeons is a fascinating read!, November 9, 2007

By 

Mellanie True Hills (Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center (Hardcover)

The Surgeons is an intriguing glimpse into the lives and work of the heart surgeons at New York's Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, one of the world's top cardiac surgery centers.

Author Charles Morris provides an intimate look at the work of these virtuosos who hold lives in their hands every day. We get to know such artisans as Craig Smith, head of cardiothoracic surgery, who is well-known for doing the quadruple bypass on former President Bill Clinton; Eric Rose, a cardiothoracic surgeon and chairman of the Department of Surgery; Mehmet Oz, senior adult cardiac surgeon, well-known author of three New York Times best-sellers, and regular contributor on Oprah; and many others, whose names will be better known as a result of this book.

From his unparalleled access to attend surgeries and meetings, Morris gives us an incredibly insightful view into how these surgeons think. It's a real-world, insider's look at the people, problems, and politics in a major hospital. As an example, he explores the politics between the surgeons and the interventional cardiologists, and talks about how their disciplines are converging.

The book tackles a variety of topics, from how the heart works and the history of heart surgery to health care policy and directions for high tech medicine. It even explores the innovative new business models pursued by Columbia-Presbyterian. An intriguing bit of trivia that Morris reveals is that Thomas J. Watson, former chairman of IBM, made a personal project of financing and developing the heart-lung bypass machine, which is still used today in many open-heart surgeries.

Morris excels at sharing the stories of surgeries and the patients benefiting from them. We get an intimate look at patients that made it and those that didn't. We experience the heart-rending story of four-year old Erika Maynard and her family, a story sure to tear at your heart strings. We get to go with him on a heart transplant run to secure a heart, and then see it transplanted. Morris' writing is so visual, and the stories so real and vivid, that you actually see and feel them.

The Surgeons is a fascinating read!

Mellanie True Hills
American Foundation for Women's Health and www.StopAfib.org
Author, A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars My heart be still ... AND healthy!!!!, December 23, 2007

By 

Kevin Quinley "GeezerJock" (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center (Hardcover)

Author Charles Morris offers insightful profiles of top cardiac surgeons at a New York area medical center. One gets a sense of the incredible training and sacrifice that goes into being one of these medical virtuosos, who literally hold the lives of patients in their skilled hands.

Morris also provides an interesting discussion of health care economics, making predictions on how America may attempt to address the healthcare crisis what with the aging of the Baby Boomer generation.

Morris' admiration for the surgeons profiled often leaves him awestruck, with a tendency to deify these practitioners. Rolled out as the proverbial whipping boys are the Bad Guys of Big Pharma and Medical Device Companies. The critique tends to obscure the fact that doctors are somewhat willing participants in the promotional schemes used by such firms, but they escape much of the venom that Morris reserves for health care businesses.

"The Surgeons" is an enlightening and thought-provoking book on specialists that you hope you'll never have to see. Take care of your ticker!!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Surgeons" from a patient's perspective, February 1, 2008

By 

K. Davey "Ken Davey" (Hopewell, Jct., New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center (Hardcover)

With amazing detail, "The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center" provides a view of many behind-the-scene challenges of modern cardiac surgery. I spent four days as a patient in the cardiac unit at New York's Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital while author Charles Morris shadowed surgeons "unrestricted" in the same unit for an entire year.

It is quite fascinating to read what doctors are thinking, feeling and doing while life is literally in their hands. Cardiac surgery is one of the few procedures in which, at every moment, "the patient is at risk of sudden death." As a result of many long years of medical training and incredible sacrifice, cardiothoracic surgeons provide their patients the gift we all crave, longevity and quality of life.

Charles Morris writes a fascinating description of what happens once a heart patient is anesthetized on the operating table. Prep work takes about an hour. The patient is "shaved, and painted almost head to toe with bright red antiseptic; various monitoring leads and hookups are affixed around the body, breathing and imaging tubes pushed down the throat, a flow monitoring catheter is threaded through the jugular vein" into the heart, and a urinary catheter into the bladder. The patient is wrapped with yards and yards of sterile tape and gauze and "eyes are taped shut."

When Columbia-Presbyterian heart surgeon Craig Smith, MD recently opened my chest, the mitral and aortic valves were beyond repair with healed endocarditis and a worn out aortic root. In 8.5 hours of surgery, Dr. Smith skillfully removed scar tissue and replaced both valves with bovine (cow) tissue and the aorta with a 28mm graft.

Although many of the more difficult cases are sent to Columbia-Presbyterian, heart valve surgery is considered "relatively routine." Craig Smith performs about 350 heart operations a year and heads up the largest heart transplant center in the country.

Congratulations to Charles Morris for his eloquence, as he provides heart patients and the public a greater understanding and cardiothoracic surgeons and the medical community a voice.