Rate this book

The Scalpel And The Soul: Encounters With Surgery, The Supernatural, And The Healing Power Of Hope (2008)

by Allan J. Hamilton(Favorite Author)

4.04 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1585426156 (ISBN13: 9781585426157)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Tarcher

review 1: I don't read a lot of nonfiction, but I'm on vacation at my mom's house, and she said, "You should read this, it's really good." I started reading and couldn't put the book down, an experience all of you readers know very well. The Scalpel and the Soul is by a neurosurgeon who tells stories about how he got into medicine and about his patients, especially spiritual/supernatural experiences. These encounters have contributed to shaping the doctor's own spirituality and world view.Hamilton has a strong, humorous, idiosyncratic written voice. The 2-3 paragraphs in which he describes the wet and dry seasons in Gabon (where he did some medical service) are so well written I'm going to use them as a sample in a writing class I'm teaching next month.I was also impressed by the po... morewer with which the author can describe something like a children's burn unit, all without becoming coyly sentimental. Just taking the chapters as short stories/memoir, many are unforgettable. The one about an old woman who faces down cancer AND her doctor in light of her grandson's condition is funny and wonderful and a complete tear-jerker, for example.You don't have to be religious to appreciate the poignancy and surprising twists and turns in Dr. Hamilton's medical adventures over the years. He alludes to Buddhism, Native American religious practices, Christianity, agnostic logic, and more in recounting some of the amazing things he's seen over the years. Late in the book, the author refers more specifically to God and the divine, but throughout its pages, he makes it clear he is open to many kinds of spirituality.For whatever reason you pick it up, The Scalpel and the Soul is worth reading.
review 2: The doctor offers little in ways of stories to support his intriguing title! His ego spreads an auto bigraphy piece meal throughout the book, without any flow, or connections. He is a poor boy working dog kennels with a vet, then next we find him at Harvard Med school?!?! How?!? Never told. His back is injured from a fall during Desert Storm, where he was a doctor--how did he fall? Never told! Now these would have made the Boi part more interesting. Then suddenly one chaprter--he is a mountain climber--done the Apls even! would have been better to do the boi all at once, or just done the book--.The stories were related from student days and Doctor days--not that many to make the worth buying after all, nor the stories that exciting-at least to me--an ER nurse. I have seen and heard better. He admits to OCD and I thinks he has a couple of issues as well. to practice so long and be out of touch with your patients as he was in the stories--may be nurses see things differently since we are nurses, we are there for the patients the most.This book just not deliver what the title promised. I am willing to discuss some of the stories even, to show how unspiritual they really are, while others might more fit the title. less

Download links for: The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural, and the Healing Power of Hope

Advertising