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

Pioneering English heart surgeon Westaby champions the extraordinary accomplishments of artificial heart technology in his dazzling memoir. He chronicles his own swashbuckling role in advancing their use, reflecting on a few of the 12,000 “desperately sick” patients for whom he refused to give up hope. They include Julie, a 21-year-old student-teacher for whom an implanted device marked the start of an alternative treatment to a heart transplant; 10-year-old Stephan, whose Berlin Heart device kept him alive until a donor heart was found; 58-year-old Peter, whose eight years of life with a “Jarvik 2000” mechanical heart proved “that extra life is not ordinary life”; and six-month-old Kristy, whose failing heart was “reconfigured,” in the process demonstrating that an infant’s cardiac stem cells can regenerate heart muscle. Westaby energetically details these life-and-death battles, conceding that he follows the advice of his hero, Winston Churchill: “Never surrender.” Westaby grew up poor and decided to become a heart surgeon at age seven after watching American doctors on TV close a hole in someone’s heart. After witnessing a catastrophic and haunting operation as a med student, he realized that “it is tomorrow that matters.” For this trailblazing surgeon, saving lives means keeping an unflinching eye on the future. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell. (June)