Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table

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Westaby was determined to save the child as he understood the torment the young woman felt as she finally relinquished her iron-like grip on her precious bundle of rags. Intent on bringing good news to the mother, he tried a heretical method which proved successful. Unfortunately, immediately after the operation, his attention was diverted to another trauma patient. Within this time, tampering from the inexperienced intensive care team led to a rapid deterioration that left the boy beyond salvation. There was nothing Westaby could do to reverse the damage. While loss and contriteness are inevitable, a majority of the book still revolves around miracles—patients rescued from the edge of the cliff by sheer ingenuity and assiduousness. To be able to wield the scalpel with confidence and dexterity takes years of practice and hard work, but it also takes a little bit of flair and a lot of courage to try new things. Westaby’s admirable propensity for innovation is embodied in his invention of the Westaby tube to treat a patient with a severely damaged windpipe, as well as his willingness to experiment with new devices and heart pumps. This reminds me of the Atul Gawande’s book, Better, in which he extols the spirit of never giving up on patients. Perfection can be an elusive target, but our patients deserve the best chance at life. It is for them that we must keep striving towards that fabled asymptote called perfection.

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Steve Westaby is a celebrated world-famous heart surgeon who is renowned for being the first surgeon in history to fit a patient with a new type of artificial heart. During his 35-year career as a surgeon he worked at several of the UK’s top hospitals and performed over 11,000 heart operations. He won the Ray C. Fish Award for Scientific Achievement (2004). In 2004 Steve Westab... There is no single treatment for Fragile X syndrome, but there are treatments that help minimize the symptoms of the condition. Individuals with Fragile X who receive appropriate education, therapy services, and medications have the best chance of using all of their individual capabilities and skills. Even those with an intellectual or developmental disability can learn to master many self-help skills.Prepare the individual for any changes in routine by explaining these changes ahead of time, possibly by using visual signs. As a rugby-playing, testosterone-fuelled medical student, aged 18, he illicitly watched from the eaves of the Ether Dome, in the then Charing Cross hospital, as a 26-year-old woman called Beth was operated on for a heart weakened by rheumatic fever. She died. A year later, Christiaan Barnard performed the first human-to-human heart transplant. The patient lived for 18 days. I admire him for taking the chances he did... not many would and like he said as well... some or most of these operations may not have happened today. The risks he and everyone took may not have gone over as well either.

Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life [PDF] [EPUB] Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life

We are committed to improving maternal care for Pakistan and Kenya’s poorest mothers and their babies, as well as supporting the nutritional health of women and girls. We’re achieving this through offering a higher standard of medical care and nutrition, as well as working alongside local midwives and doctors to support them in caring for new mothers and their babies. We also offer education and support to mothers, empowering them to give their babies the best possible start to life. Now who gets what, when and on what criteria prompts Westaby’s profound frustration at “the Stasi”. Providing an artificial heart costs hundreds of thousands of pounds. The longest a recipient has lived, Peter Houghton, operated on by Westaby in 2000, is seven years. Houghton carried the batteries for his heart in a shoulder bag and had a plug in his head. When questioned about his extra lease of life, Houghton replied: “Three days out of five, it’s better than being dead.” As a doctor I truly enjoyed this book and how the patients’ stories were told in a respectful way without loosing that morbid matter-of-fact humor many doctors develop. Medication is most effective when paired with therapy designed to teach new coping or behavioral skills. Not every medication helps every child.

When Kawita became pregnant with their second child, Uttam worried they wouldn’t be able to afford the birth but then they heard about Penny Appeal’s new Health Centre. Kawita gave birth at our centre to a healthy baby, and both mother and child are dong wonderfully. Slightly disappointed he didn't narrate it himself... only because it is always more interesting (to me anyway) to hear the writer's voice.. but not everyone is meant to be a narrator of audiobooks *shrugs* The narrator here was very good, pleasant voice and I have a crush on his accent haha. Although the surgery details are not for the squeamish, I found them riveting. Westaby conveys a keen sense of the adrenaline rush a surgeon gets while operating with the Grim Reaper looking on. I am not a little envious of all that Westaby has achieved: not just saving the occasional life despite his high-mortality field – as if that weren’t enough – but also pioneering various artificial heart solutions and a tracheal bypass tube that’s named after him.

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Julie is alive today, as is Kirsty, operated on as a six-month-old baby, with Westaby innovating as he cuts, and learning in both cases that, given a chance, the heart can heal itself: a groundbreaking discovery. If a child with Fragile X syndrome qualifies for special services, a team of people will work together to design an IEP for the child. The team may include parents or caregivers, teachers, a school psychologist, and other specialists in child development or education. The IEP includes specific learning goals for that child, based on his or her needs and capabilities. The team also decides how best to carry out the IEP. It reaches a consensus on classroom placement for the child, determines any devices or special assistance the child needs, and identifies the specialists who will work with the child. Marsh and Westaby are likely the last of the pioneering NHS surgeons. Politicians would rather create lists and targets and 7 day GPs that no one has asked for. Why would any skilled doctor want to work in an environment where they are prevented from doing what's best for their patients? For the unfortunate patient, any prospect of survival depends upon having an experienced trauma surgeon at hand. Few are offered that privilege.”Fragile X syndrome is the most common form of inherited intellectual and developmental disability (IDD). Westaby worked all over the world and experienced many levels of both staff competence and facility provision. When dealing with a patient who will surely die without intervention, risks seem a price worth paying. This is the way, the only way, that new techniques and treatments can be developed. Physical. Most infants and younger children with Fragile X don’t have any specific physical features of this syndrome. When these children start to go through puberty, however, many will begin to develop certain features that are typical of those with Fragile X.

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A full-frontal and thrilling portrayal. Each story in this fascinating book brings a new nail-biting surgical adventure... A gifted surgeon, Westaby is also a natural writer... Fragile Lives succeeds on many levels: political battle cry, chronicle of bloody feats, history of modern cardiology, tribute to patients and paean to surgery.’– Daily TelegraphIf you need to work on or access a fragile roof or surface, no matter how short the duration, you must plan and manage the work to ensure it’s done safely. The narrator brings everything to life wonderfully with writing that isn't top notch. Not bad, just awkward and clunky at times... it didn't deter me from going on with the book though. Everything discussed in here more than made up for it me in this case.