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Another Day in the Frontal Lobe
Katrina Firlik
A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside
Random House
May 2006
288 pages ISBN: 1400063205 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
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.
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