When the Air Hits Your Brain

Tales from Neurosurgery

By: Frank T Vertosick Jr. MD

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain - the culmination of decades spent struggling to learn an unforgiving craft - illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

©2008 Frank T. Vertosick, Jr., MD (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A riveting report that shatters the mystique of the brain surgeon as a wizard of technical prowess." ( Publishers Weekly)

How a neurosurgeon deals with issues of the Brain and Heart

Whether good timing or destiny brought Dr. Vertosick into the field of neurosurgery, this book promises an explanation of the birth and evolution of a doctor who ends up in the right place. If doctors have a "calling" to their profession, it is most certainly demonstrated in this story.

Neurosurgeons may appear to be blunt, unapologetic superheroes (as they are better with matters of the brain, rather than the heart), but these professionals rise to the top of their fields , sparing no emotions, especially their own, to give people everything. Putting excessive emotions in the back seat is a part of caring for the patient who is a less than a millimeter away from death during an operation. Pushing the boundaries of what it is means to be alive, dead and human , they play with the most valuable organ in the human body hoping to preserve and salvage what it means to be human.

This book lifts away the blanket of mysticism that covers these heroic servants to show us that even superman fails, cries, shuts down, and breaks. I enjoyed every part of peeking over the surgeon's shoulder and into his heart.

Makes you appreciate life

We sometimes complain that our lives are stuck in the rut and much of the same. But this book makes you realize that this eventlessness is something precious because you can lose it in a flash when any of medical emergency hits you. The book draws you in not only with its compelling stories but also with the author's humor and compassion.

Very Interesting Book!

I wish they had left the foul language out of the book, but I guess it could have been worse. Everything else was great! It keeps you on the edge of your seat and even explains many of the medical terms so it can be understood by people that aren't in the medical field (like me).

Touching and Emotional

As a Family doc I appreciated the perspective. the narrator was very monotonous but at 1.5x speed it was tolerable.

2 Brain Surgeries

I have personally had 2 brain surgeries. I have looked for ways of describing what it's like to go through these types of procedures. I've personally had Gamma Knife radiation surgery and a craniotomy. 1 for a deep AVM in the right frontal lobe, the other for a CCM, more superficial in the right frontal lobe. The latter caused seizures. The surgeries were performed at Mayo Clinic 20 years apart. the first at the age of 15, the second age 35. I've been labeled a fascinating case with extraordinary recovery. This book allowed me a greater understanding of the brain and what I had been through. It very much confirmed many of my personal thoughts on aspects of my surgeries. I highly appreciate it, and would recommend this book. My surgeon is an extraordinary person that changed my life.

Great story/narrator

Great story about how human surgeons are and the learning curve....great narrator. A grade overall.

If You Think It's Easy to Be a Doctor-Just Listen

It's hard to imagine that anybody got through the training to become a brain surgeon. What could prepare someone to go through this? It's not always easy to listen to some of the truly heartbreaking stories, but they are told even handedly, and there are some great victories. This book will help readers put things in perspective.

Excellent book. Interesting, human, sincere

I wish there were more books on medicine like this one. The author is a very good writer, the book never loses its pace, it is interesting from beginning to end.

Great tales and perspective!

Where does When the Air Hits Your Brain rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It is the best one so far - so involving , it was almost not good choice for driving!

What did you like best about this story?

Not only the tales, but also the unique perspective on each of them! Hated for it to end!

Have you listened to any of Kirby Heyborne’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Not sure.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Just so interesting!

Any additional comments?

Best medical stories book I have read or listened to.

Really enjoyed this!

For a person with zero medical knowledge, I found this book to be impeccably written and thoroughly entertaining. I give credit to those working in the medical field, and especially those who have so much at stake in their profession. I loved the personal accounts of the patient stories.