Direct Red: A Surgeon's View of Her Life-or-Death Profession
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
“What a terrific book….[Weston] leaves you feeling that if push came to shove you’d want to be operated on by her.”
—Nicholas Shakespeare, author of Bruce Chatwin: A Biography
The continuing popularity of doctor shows on TV—from Scrubs, House, and Grey’s Anatomy to the television phenomenon ER—indicates a widespread fascination with all things medical. Direct Red, by practicing ear, nose, and throat surgical specialist Gabriel Weston, takes readers behind the scenes and into the operating room for a fascinating look at what really goes on on the other side of the hospital doors. “A Surgeon’s View of her Life-and-Death Profession,” Weston’s Direct Red is written not only with knowledge and insight, but with compassion, honesty, and literary flair.
Related to Direct Red
Related ebooks
The Unfeeling Wannabe Surgeon: A Med School Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Trauma Red: The Making of a Surgeon in War and in America's Cities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Patient by Patient: Lessons in Love, Loss, Hope, and Healing from a Doctor's Practice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Call: A Doctor's Days and Nights in Residency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Intern: A Doctor's Initiation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Night Shift: Real Life in the Heart of the E.R. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Do a Liver Transplant: Stories from My Surgical Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Doctor's Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCondition Critical: The Story of a Nurse Continues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A License to Heal: Recollections of an ER Doctor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gift of Life: The Reality Behind Donor Organ Retrieval Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThrough the Eyes of a Young Physician Assistant Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5EMERGENCY 24/7: Nurses of the Emergency Room Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lassa Ward: One Man's Fight Against One of the World's Deadliest Diseases Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Through a Surgeon's Eyes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBreaking & Mending: A junior doctor’s stories of compassion & burnout Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parables of a Paramedic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDirect Red: A Surgeon's View of Her Life-or-Death Profession Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Twelve from Hell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Most Unfeeling Doctor in the World and Other True Tales From the Emergency Room Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Unfeeling Doctor, Unplugged: More True Tales From Med School and Beyond Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Stitches Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Playing God: The Evolution of a Modern Surgeon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Between Expectations: Lessons from a Pediatric Residency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memoirs of an Emergency Nurse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters from the Pit: Stories of a Physician's Odyssey in Emergency Medicine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Doctor: Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coronary: A True Story of Medicine Gone Awry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Medical For You
The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ (Revised Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mediterranean Diet Meal Prep Cookbook: Easy And Healthy Recipes You Can Meal Prep For The Week Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women With Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences and Transform Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer's World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holistic Herbal: A Safe and Practical Guide to Making and Using Herbal Remedies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Book of Simple Herbal Remedies: Discover over 100 herbal Medicine for all kinds of Ailment Inspired By Barbara O'Neill Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving Daily With Adult ADD or ADHD: 365 Tips o the Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5"Cause Unknown": The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 & 2022 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Herbal Healing for Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5ATOMIC HABITS:: How to Disagree With Your Brain so You Can Break Bad Habits and End Negative Thinking Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hormone Reset Diet: Heal Your Metabolism to Lose Up to 15 Pounds in 21 Days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Letter to Liberals: Censorship and COVID: An Attack on Science and American Ideals Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tight Hip Twisted Core: The Key To Unresolved Pain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hidden Lives: True Stories from People Who Live with Mental Illness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Direct Red
36 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very good read.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Very short, and I found myself not liking the author very well as a person.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I picked this up on a whim, out of a bag of incoming books at the shop, because I've rather enjoyed other 'medical memoirs' I've read in the past. I find them fascinating, perhaps because the medical profession is such a world apart - men and women caring for every kind of person in every kind of difficult situation, often at absolutely critical moments in their lives. Gabriel Weston's surgical memoir is definitely the best of the bunch so far, and I can see why it was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award in 2009.Weston is a surgeon in a big-city English hospital. Her book is divided into short, deftly-titled chapters, providing themes for her anecdotes and creating an interesting structure. 'Speed', for example, illustrates the importance of quick thinking and rapid action in saving lives; 'Hierarchy' delves into the power relations of a surgical ward, and 'Children' covers her time in the paediatric emergency room and children's department. Theming each section allows Weston to move around in time and to make important points about the surgical profession without muddling her narrative, and it really worked for me.This is a beautifully written book that rings with the precise and matter-of-fact detail that a surgeon's eye is trained to notice. Weston's disclaimer points out that no one character or situation here is 'true' - but I don't think it really matters, because at the book's heart is a thoroughly authentic and experienced voice. There were some heartbreaking moments and some charming ones, some lyrical descriptions and some blisteringly earthy ones. Far from being frightened by the graphic surgical scenes, I found myself reassured by how much the human body can withstand, and how much a surgical team can do to mend it when it is broken. Highly recommended - though if you're squeamish you should probably give this one a miss!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/53.0 out of 5 stars Something of a letdown..., July 26, 2009By Kathleen Wagner "*Mitakuye Oyasin or We are A... (SWPA) - See all my reviews(REAL NAME) Reading this book will give you an idea of what a young woman training to be a doctor in England faces. It is clear that bias against woman doctors has not yet been completely eliminated, especially among older, male doctors.This book is a collection of the experiences of a young woman who enters medical school and the situations she faced and how she deals with them. Weston tells of dealing with children, emergencies, death,and more, and her own personal grow as she makes her way through.The stories are brief and informative. The author mentions that it was her intent to depersonalize the stories in order to honor the privacy of her patients. Some of the experiences she relates are interesting and poignant.In fact most of them are, yet there is something missing. The approach is matter of fact to the extreme. Some descriptions are somewhat graphic, but no more than need be to get the point across and give an accurate picture of the experience.To me the most interesting part of this short book deals with Weston's own personal growth. I find it hard to describe exactly what it was that I found lacking, but there was indeed something missing here. Bland is the word I can best use to describe this book. It held my attention long enough to finish reading, but I was not sorry to put it down when I had.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Direct Red is an eminently readable collection of stories drawn from Gabriel Weston’s experiences while training and working as a surgeon in the UK.The opening page finds her near collapse from exhaustion (and tedium) while in her seventh hour of assisting on an OR case. Desperate to not admit vulnerability in front of her colleagues, she resorts to a private mantra -- recalling the names of tissue stains that fascinated her back in medical school: Methylene blue, Acridine orange, Malachite green, Tyrian purple … Direct red. This list rouses her back to clarity in the OR and launches her series of stories set at other precipices of vulnerability, represented by theme-based chapters: Speed, Sex, Death, Voices, Beauty, Hierarchy, Territory, Emergencies, Ambition, Help, Children, Appearances, Changes, and Home.The book’s description likens Weston to Atul Gawande (Complications, Better), but while they both write patient-centered stories of medicine and surgery, their content and styles differ markedly. Gawande is a master essayist, using the clinical case as a jumping-off point for deep explorations of the science, history and ethics of practice. Weston is a compelling storyteller whose laser-focused patient-doctor vignettes are full of tension, emotion and keen observation.Despite having spent my career in healthcare, the book surprised and informed me, and I devoured it in a day.