About book The Scalpel And The Soul: Encounters With Surgery, The Supernatural, And The Healing Power Of Hope (2008)
This book is a fast-paced read. I recommend Hamilton's memoir to those reviewers who seem to not like memoirs that are too revealing about the author.* Hamilton tells a little about himself but each chapter is about his encounter with one of his patients, some of them heartbreakingly sad (burn victims, brain tumors). But also Hamilton is that rare physician who sees beyond the physical world and he embraces the unexplained miracles and metaphysical experiences. The book is hopeful and yet unsentimental.*I am baffled by reviewers who don't seem to understand that the genre of memoir is about the author---I've read too many bad (I mean bad, not critical) reviews by readers at GoodReads who criticize the memoirist for using I and me. I have to scratch my head on those. Are they supposed to talk about themselves in the third person or write a fictional account? I suggest those reviewers don't bother reading memoir (I wouldn't read or review most mysteries---don't like the genre). Memoir is a more and more popular genre and there is a huge audience who benefits from reading the well-crafted memoir of intimate and personal detail. I'm happy to read critical reviews of memoir. But to read one that just goes on and on about a book being bad because the writer talks about herself, her feelings in her own memoir will keep me from trusting that reviewer on any book. I embrace a skillful critical review in the same way I would embrace a book I didn't particularly agree with. I liked the premise of this book better than the book itself. Although I give Dr. Hamilton credit for his unvarnished storytelling (unapologetically referring to a pediatric burn unit as "Crispy Critters" or a toddler with hydrocephalus as a "pumpkin head"), it wasn't until the epilogue, when he wrote about how his own experience as a surgical patient left him physically unable to continue practicing neurosurgery that I felt any sense of connection to him. And just in case the reader missed the point of the first sixteen chapters, he includes an appendix, "Twenty Rules to Live By." There are better written books by physician/authors (e.g., Atul Gawande, Jerome Groopman) that I would recommend ahead of this one.
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reinforces my belief on the compatibility of science and spirituality
—tabitha
Read this on recommendation from my mother-in-law
—jhen
