Another Day in the Frontal Lobe
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
Katrina Firlik is a neurosurgeon, one of only two hundred or so women among the alpha males who dominate this high-pressure, high-prestige medical specialty. She is also a superbly gifted writer--witty, insightful, at once deeply humane and refreshingly wry. In Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, Dr. Firlik draws on this rare combination to create a neurosurgeon's Kitchen Confidential--a unique insider's memoir of a fascinating profession.Neurosurgeons are renowned for their big egos and aggressive self-confidence, and Dr. Firlik confirms that timidity is indeed rare in the field. "They're the kids who never lost at musical chairs," she writes. A brain surgeon is not only a highly trained scientist and clinician but also a mechanic who of necessity develops an intimate, hands-on familiarity with the gray matter inside our skulls. It's the balance between cutting-edge medical technology and manual dexterity, between instinct and expertise, that Firlik finds so appealing--and so difficult to master. Firlik recounts how her background as a surgeon's daughter with a strong stomach and a keen interest in the brain led her to this rarefied specialty, and she describes her challenging, atypical trek from medical student to fully qualified surgeon. Among Firlik's more memorable cases: a young roofer who walked into the hospital with a three-inch-long barbed nail driven into his forehead, the result of an accident with his partner's nail gun, and a sweet little seven-year-old boy whose untreated earache had become a raging, potentially fatal infection of the brain lining. From OR theatrics to thorny ethical questions, from the surprisingly primitive tools in a neurosurgeon's kit to glimpses of future techniques like the "brain lift," Firlik cracks open medicine's most prestigious and secretive specialty. Candid, smart, clear-eyed, and unfailingly engaging, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe is a mesmerizing behind-the-scenes glimpse into a world of incredible competition and incalculable rewards.From the Hardcover edition.
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Medical memoirs are my version of brain candy and being weeks away from earning my own M.D. from Dr. Firlik's alma mater, I thought this would be an apropos read. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm part of Dr. Firlik's intended audience. Granted most medical memoirs are written for the layperson, but being some what of a connoisseur of the genre, I can tell you that some are more interesting to those of us who have done are own time in the neurosurgical OR and some of them are less so.
All of this is not to say that I didn't find Dr. Firlik's book entertaining. It certainly was, and in particular Dr. Firlik has inherited a gift of storytelling – her patient encounters are touching, detailed and never judgmental. This is clearly the strong point of the book.
The weaker parts of the book are that, while she is clearly trying to be, Dr. Firlik herself admits that she is no Dr. Sacks. She alludes to him frequently, but just as frequently apologizes for the lack of deep thought on the brain/mind dichotomy that she is interested in, explaining that as a neurosurgeon, her first commitment is to the operating room. Her honesty is appreciated, and at points it seems that she is doing herself a disservice, for she is a very introspective person. But at the end of the day, she's correct – she sees interesting questions that arise from her profession, but has not explored them in depth. At no point is this more clear than the very weak closing two chapters, particularly the last chapter regarding the future of neurosurgery.
This chapter is rushed and wandering. It contains too many ideas for one chapter, ranging from neuro-enhancements to minimally invasive surgeries to a discussion of turf-wars that may, in fact, be too entrenched in medical politics to be comprehensible to the lay audience. Dr. Firlik should play to her strengths – the ability to recount the daily life of a neurosurgeon and leave further exploration of the questions she raises on consciousness, the mind and neurological enhancements to the reader.
Ultimate difficult job? Brain surgeon, right? Turns out it's not that hard...at least it doesn't seem all that hard according to Katrina Firlik in her memoir, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe. She's got some stories to tell. I won't give anything away, but you won't forget the man with the infection that moved from his face into his brain.
Pretty good book. Interesting for the most part, but disturbing at times when she seems to go a lot further in her value judgments than a doctor should (“should we really spend money on keeping this person alive?”), as if it was a surgeon's job to define the economical balance between insurers and the insured.
Still, it was an enlightening read about what can and can't be done with brain surgery, what's hard about it, and so on. Recommended!
