Life on a Knife’s Edge: A Brain Surgeon’s Reflections on Life, Loss and Survival

Neurosurgeon Jandial (Life Lessons) offers a high-flying account of operating-room feats. He describes dislodging cancerous tumors deep within the brain, staunching burst aneurysms, and performing a hemicorporectomy (an operation where the lower half of the body is removed), as well as the strategies he used to stay focused, such as a light workout the night before and meditative breathing to help keep his cool. Jandial characterizes the satisfaction he gets from performing death-defying procedures as an addiction, and is forthcoming about his failures, including an “error of judgment” that left an 11-year-old girl paralyzed from the waist down. His prose is vivid (brain vessels are “slightly different in each of us... you work top down, as if you are parting a tree’s canopy to reach the thick branches deep inside”), and he doesn’t neglect considering the importance of emotionally connecting with his patients: “The possibility of surgery gave her hope, and hope was her strength.... Leaders in the field had said that her cancer was inoperable.... The challenge was my stimulant.” Indeed, Jandial isn’t humble about his talent or his quest for surgical adventure. The result is a fast ride, jolting at times, with fleeting insights into the mind of a surgeon. (May)