ALL BLEEDING STOPS

A veteran surgeon recounts what makes his career in critical care both rewarding and frustrating.

Cohn chronicles the joys and pains of his work as a trauma surgeon in an illuminating, educational, and graphically descriptive tour of trauma centers and surgeons’ role within the health care system. The author analyzes what makes a good trauma surgeon and creatively re-creates the arduous path toward becoming one—from a “long and grueling course of training” to hospital settings, where they are the “utility infielders for surgical emergencies.” Cohn discusses the differences in trauma care centers across the globe, and he describes his time as a junior surgical faculty member in the U.S. Army Reserve in the 1980s. In 1990, he was unexpectedly deployed to Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. The author remarks that not every medical student in training has what it takes to be a trauma care professional. Patience, surgical agility, and rapid decision-making are crucial. Many times, surgeons like himself (and his father) often made decisions without prior knowledge of a patient’s medical history or sustained injuries. Throughout the book, Cohn vividly illustrates these fraught, lifesaving moments. The author also intersperses patient care cases from his longstanding career, during which he had to cope with issues of improper protocol, the misconceptions of a surgeon’s “technical brilliance,” and episodes involving complicated gall bladders, hernias, stomach blockages, and other clinical conundrums. In addition to his personal story, Cohn delivers striking medical statistics on the prevalence of U.S. trauma incidents (100 million per year) and criticizes rising health care costs and how public health policies, gun laws, and poor ethics contribute to legions of disillusioned physicians and dissatisfied patients. The author’s seasoned perspective joins with real-time medical drama in this memorable clinical retrospective.

A well-balanced, eye-opening glimpse into the daily life, frustrations, and politics of a medical professional.