| The Making of a Surgeon in the 21st Century | 
 enlarge | Author: Craig A. Miller
Publisher: Blue Dolphin Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 252
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.7 x 1.1
ISBN: 157733115X
Dewey Decimal Number: 617.092
EAN: 9781577331155
Publication Date: January 15, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Making of a Surgeon in the 21st Century is a highly personalized description of one individual's experiences during a five-year residency in general surgery at a major university hospital. It describes the personal challenges and rewards, the drama of triumph and tragedy, the agony of indecision and the thrill of success. Residency is the most profoundly life-altering sequence of events in a surgeon's life. What does it take to make a surgeon? It takes a college degree and a medical school education, followed by a residency. And it takes a willingness to subordinate one's personal life to acquiring the skills and knowledge which a surgeon must possess. This sacrifice takes its toll - on families, on mental health, on life-style. A surgical trainee may not get out on his own until well in his thirties - living, in the meantime, a meager existence at best. Post-graduate training in surgery is longer than that of any other medical specialty, five years at least. Tortuous on-call schedules often demand exceedingly long work hours - 100-hour work weeks being the norm. Compounding the problem are very high stress levels, the burdens shouldered by the resident's family in his frequent absence and often an enormous educational debt. Nevertheless, every year hundreds of fresh medical school graduates compete for the few available positions. They are consistently the very best of their classes. Why would otherwise intelligent, highly motivated individuals actively seek such a miserable existence? Surgeons have, of course, been glorified in the mass media as the swaggering, brilliant, fiercely independent cowboys of the medical profession. Their compensation has also been great. But beyond this is a personal quality best defined as decisiveness. They want to make the difference, in no uncertain terms. In surgery, when the patient enters the operating room he is suffering from disease. Thanks to the surgeon, he may be wheeled out cured. It doesn't happen every time, of course, but the possibility is there (in other disciplines of medicine "cure" is, unfortunately, an unusual event). Who wouldn't want to be such a healer, making a palpable, tangible difference?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 just...ok June 28, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Compared to other "surgical" based books, this one did'nt have the kick in it. When compared to Gawande's Complications or Vertosick's When Air Hits Your Brain, this ones not even close. Not worth the time or ur cash
A good book but. . . October 20, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. It's well written and is an interesting account of the author's experiences in his training to become a surgeon. I've read a lot of these kinds of books and while most doctors have good stories to tell, not all of them are particularly good writers. I would say that Dr. Miller is a pretty decent writer. The text flows easily and his stories are entertaining.
What I don't like is his attitutde toward nurses. On more than one occassion, he calls them "bitches." He apparently had some negative encounters with nurses and therefore seems to group them all into this category. In discussing pediatric nurses, he mentions how nurses believe they need to be patient advocates which he disagrees with. He actually says that they should not be advocates but rather simply caregivers. In other words, just shut up and do what the doctors tell you. He apparently doesn't like nurses descibing themselves as patient advocates because this because it implies that the patients have something they need to be protected from (i.e. the doctors) which he seems to take offense to. I personally feel that nurses should be advocates in addition to caregivers and that sometimes patients do need protection, someone who is looking out for their best needs.
Granted, what I have just said may not accurately describe his true feelings about nurses in general, but it is the impression that he gives in the book. Other then that, it's a great read for anyone in the medical field or a layperson (like myself) who just enjoys reading these kinds of books.
Honest although not very entertaining August 4, 2007
The Making of a Surgeon in the 21st Century is an honest account of the challenges and satisfaction that many surgeons-in-training could relate to. He explains what surgeons go through in easy to understand language and probably it would be a worthwhile read for the families of surgeons-in-training to give them insight and understanding of the process. Dr Miller is not a particularly entertaining writer - certainly not in the same league as Atul Gawande - but that is possibly one of the things that make the experiences seem more genuine.
A Colorful and Interesting Account June 24, 2006
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Medical memoirs have become a popular genre. Most are quite revealing as to the virtual hell a four to five year resident must experience to become a qualified practitioner. The resident surgeon's experience has to be the most hellish in terms of the amount of hours worked, (100 hour weeks) the pressure brought to bear from the attending staff, sometimes extremely sadistic, abrasive and demeaning, not to mention the continuos mental strain from lack of sleep and the stress on the residents family, some families, unfortunately, disintegrate at some point along the way. Craig Miller's book clearly expresses all these things, however it is the spirit in which he communicates these experiences that makes his memoir worthwhile reading.
A better word would be a colourful account of his experiences as a resident. He not only explains the program in easy to comprehend prose, it is his anecdotes, describing the many characters that make-up this world that is entertaining as well as intriguing. About halfway through the text, I wondered if he had changed the names of the attending staff, nurses, and fellow surgeons that he profiles, because his characterizations are really, for the most part, quite scathing. In some cases the descriptions bordered on the libellous, smelling a legal suit some time in the future. However I'm sure his editors took this into consideration before publication. I certainly hope so.
The most revealing and educational part of the book was Miller's explanation of the standard step-by-step procedure (the Advanced Trauma Life Support protocols) when working in the ER, the initial steps of trauma management. Interestingly it is broken down simply so that the attending staff do not have to "think", but sequentially run through this procedure of "A is for Airway, B is for Breathing, C is for circulation, D is for Disability and E is for exposure." (P. 207) Miller is extremely annoyed how TV dramas as well as `reality' documentaries give the wrong impression to add to the pathos. In fact the ATLS protocols, following the A, B, C, D, E standard procedure avoids the chaos, ensuring the best for the trauma victim. This section of the text was extremely informative.
By the end of Miller's Chief Residency, he had the confidence and the confidence of his teachers to forge on alone, and realized he had truly become a surgeon. Having read the book in an afternoon, his writing was such that I felt his relief and sense of accomplishment by the end of his five-year residency. This has to be one of the most difficult and gruelling training out of all the professions, physically, intellectually and emotionally. In the Epilogue, Miller expresses his ambivalence about the current residency system in terms of its viciousness and amazing effectiveness in producing top-notch surgeons. The system hasn't changed since the 19th century. The process certainly takes its toll but for a price and is the price worth it?
A recommended read for anyone interested in the education of a surgeon.
 More like, "The Whining of a Resident" May 7, 2006
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
William Nolen's original "The Making of a Surgeon" was a near epic inspirational recounting of one's surgical training. It celebrated the training process that molded eager, talented young doctors into, what else, surgeons. He portrayed a system that was necessarily grueling in order to insure that the products were worthy and capable of having people's very lives placed into their hands. Miller's tale, on the other hand, is more the revisionist whining of a worker who believes his boss never appreciated his talents or efforts. The entire book reads much like the faculty roast he recounts near the end: a steady spiteful payback; a re-vengeful, cathartic diatribe in which the targets are the very faculty and institution that tolerated him as a green, imperfect but promising young recruit and trained him to be a surgeon. If your preference is inspiration, stick with the original. If you enjoy wallowing in self-pity and pointing the fingers at others to explain your own shortcomings, you'll enjoy Miller's version.
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