
Backbone
The Life and Game-Changing Career of a Spinal Neurosurgeon
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Don Colasurd Jr.
About this listen
On a beautiful spring morning in 1989, neurosurgeon and spine expert Volker Sonntag was just finishing rounds at Saint Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. At that same moment 16 miles away, a hard-charging boy named TJ veered his bike into the path of a speeding pickup truck. The impact all but killed the boy, leaving him with a shattered leg, severe internal injuries, a massive blood clot near the brain stem, and - but for the fragile spinal cord - a complete separation of the skull from the spine.
This is the riveting story of how Dr. Sonntag's pioneering innovation that day launched him into the forefront of the emerging field of spinal neurosurgery. Surgeon to a who's who of royalty, celebrities, and politicians, his clear-eyed accounts of failures and successes, hostile turf wars, media accusations of quackery, political challenges, and cutting-edge technical advances reveal to the listener just what it takes to be a game-changer in one of the world's most harrowing professions.
Revered by patients, residents, and fellows for his highly personal approach to teaching and mentorship, and for his example of life balance, in this book Dr. Sonntag also shares stories of his youth as a German immigrant in Cold War America that lend insight into how, with humility, sacrifice, honesty, compassion, industry - and humor - an individual can overcome adversity and achieve the American Dream.
©2017 Lisa Hagan Books (P)2017 Beacon AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
Medicine in Translation
- Journeys with My Patients
- By: Danielle Ofri
- Narrated by: Beth Richmond
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For two decades, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world's cultures. In Medicine in Translation she introduces us, in vivid, moving portraits, to her patients, who have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile in order to access quality health care.
-
-
Enjoyed it all the way through, but...
- By Neight on 03-27-15
By: Danielle Ofri
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
-
Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
Ben Carson
- A Chance at Life (Heroes of History)
- By: Janet Benge, Geoff Benge
- Narrated by: Tim Gregory
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child growing up in Detroit, Ben Carson (1951-) has a dream of becoming a physician, a dream that rose out of struggles with poverty, racism, and poor grades. As Ben persevered and strove for academic excellence, his life became one of compassion and service. Today, Benjamin Carson, MD, is known as the American neurosurgeon with gifted hands.
-
-
He is an overcomer and difference maker
- By busy mom on 01-03-24
By: Janet Benge, and others
-
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
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.
-
-
Finished in 1 and 1/2 days
- By Philos on 04-15-17
-
Do No Harm
- Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Jim Barclay
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.
-
-
Uneven
- By Scott on 06-02-15
By: Henry Marsh
-
She Danced with Lightning
- My Daughter's Struggle with Epilepsy and Her Boundless Will to Live
- By: Marc Palmieri
- Narrated by: Marc Palmieri
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eleven-year-old Anna has lived all her life with severe epilepsy. Despite the ravage of thousands of violent seizures and heavy medications, she has thrived at school, athletics, and her greatest passion—dance. As she approaches her twelfth birthday, Anna's condition takes a dire turn. Her health declines quickly and a new diagnosis is revealed, leaving the family only one excruciating choice.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Sheila Valaer on 01-08-24
By: Marc Palmieri
-
Medicine in Translation
- Journeys with My Patients
- By: Danielle Ofri
- Narrated by: Beth Richmond
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For two decades, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world's cultures. In Medicine in Translation she introduces us, in vivid, moving portraits, to her patients, who have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile in order to access quality health care.
-
-
Enjoyed it all the way through, but...
- By Neight on 03-27-15
By: Danielle Ofri
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
-
Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
Ben Carson
- A Chance at Life (Heroes of History)
- By: Janet Benge, Geoff Benge
- Narrated by: Tim Gregory
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child growing up in Detroit, Ben Carson (1951-) has a dream of becoming a physician, a dream that rose out of struggles with poverty, racism, and poor grades. As Ben persevered and strove for academic excellence, his life became one of compassion and service. Today, Benjamin Carson, MD, is known as the American neurosurgeon with gifted hands.
-
-
He is an overcomer and difference maker
- By busy mom on 01-03-24
By: Janet Benge, and others
-
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
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.
-
-
Finished in 1 and 1/2 days
- By Philos on 04-15-17
-
Do No Harm
- Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Jim Barclay
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.
-
-
Uneven
- By Scott on 06-02-15
By: Henry Marsh
-
She Danced with Lightning
- My Daughter's Struggle with Epilepsy and Her Boundless Will to Live
- By: Marc Palmieri
- Narrated by: Marc Palmieri
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eleven-year-old Anna has lived all her life with severe epilepsy. Despite the ravage of thousands of violent seizures and heavy medications, she has thrived at school, athletics, and her greatest passion—dance. As she approaches her twelfth birthday, Anna's condition takes a dire turn. Her health declines quickly and a new diagnosis is revealed, leaving the family only one excruciating choice.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Sheila Valaer on 01-08-24
By: Marc Palmieri
-
Open Heart
- A Cardiac Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table
- By: Stephen Westaby
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death. When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be.
-
-
Fascinating!
- By Jason on 03-09-19
By: Stephen Westaby
-
Marker
- By: Robin Cook
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-eight-year-old Sean McGillin is the picture of health, until he fractures his leg while in-line skating in New York City's Central Park. Within 24 hours of his surgery, he dies.
-
-
A bit too predictable
- By Martin on 06-26-05
By: Robin Cook
-
I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out
- True Stories of Becoming a Nurse
- By: Lee Gutkind
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks", first births, and first deaths and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts and keeps them in the profession.
-
-
A nurse must read!
- By Janet on 08-16-15
By: Lee Gutkind
-
Twelve Patients
- Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital
- By: Eric Manheimer
- Narrated by: Eric Manheimer
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spirit of Oliver Sacks Awakenings and the TV series House, Dr. Eric Manheimer's Twelve Patients is a memoir from the medical director of Bellevue Hospital that uses the plights of 12 very different patients - from dignitaries at the nearby UN, to supermax prisoners from Riker's Island, to illegal immigrants, and Wall Street tycoons - to illustrate larger societal issues.
-
-
Awesome Book
- By NanaLyn on 08-06-12
By: Eric Manheimer
-
The Shift
- One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives
- By: Theresa Brown RN
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a book as eye-opening as it is riveting, practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience not just a day in the life of a nurse but all the life that happens in just one day in a hospital's cancer ward. In the span of 12 hours, lives can be lost, life-altering medical treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen.
-
-
Attempting Infinity Over 12 Hours--
- By Gillian on 03-01-17
By: Theresa Brown RN
-
Lights and Sirens
- The Education of a Paramedic
- By: Kevin Grange
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine months of tying tourniquets and pushing new medications, of IVs, chest compressions, and defibrillator shocks - that was Kevin Grange's initiation into emergency medicine when, at age 36, he enrolled in the "Harvard of paramedic schools": UCLA's Daniel Freeman paramedic program, long considered one of the best and most intense paramedic training programs in the world.
-
-
if your looking into EMS as a career DO READ!!!i
- By Jess-eoohh on 07-15-16
By: Kevin Grange
-
Trauma
- A Novel
- By: Michael Palmer, Daniel Palmer
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Carrie Bryant's four years as a neurosurgical resident at White Memorial Hospital have earned her the respect and admiration from peers and staff alike. When given the chance of performing her first unsupervised brain surgery, Carrie jumps at the opportunity. What should have been a routine, hours-long operation turns horribly wrong and jeopardizes her patient's life. Emotionally and physically drained, Carrie is rushed back to the OR to assist in a second surgery.
-
-
Michael lives on
- By dk.bookworm on 05-20-15
By: Michael Palmer, and others
-
The Patient
- By: Michael Palmer
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
His name is ARTIE, a miracle of bio-engineering that is about to transform the field of neurosurgery. Dr. Jessie Copeland knows him better than anyone else at Eastern Mass Medical Center- and knows it's too soon to be using the tiny robot on a living patient's brain. But, Jessie's department chief is too busy to worry about such ethics. And neither of them has any idea that ARTIE will attract a patient from their worst nightmares.
-
-
Good Medical Read
- By Lady Rider on 05-08-18
By: Michael Palmer
-
Intern
- A Doctor's Initiation
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Sandeep Jauhar
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A thriving cardiologist, Jauhar has all the qualities you'd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, a feel for the human factor, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common. His beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight.
-
-
very realistic
- By Heather Stein on 10-18-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
-
Second Suns
- Two Doctors and Their Amazing Quest to Restore Sight and Save Lives
- By: David Oliver Relin
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this transporting book, David Oliver Relin shines a light on the work of Geoffrey Tabin and Sanduk Ruit, gifted ophthalmologists who have dedicated their lives to restoring sight to some of the world’s most isolated, impoverished people through the Himalayan Cataract Project, an organization they founded in 1995. Tabin was the high-achieving bad boy of Harvard Medical School, an accomplished mountain climber and adrenaline junkie as brilliant as he was unconventional.
-
-
This guy should be madea Saint
- By Anon E Mouse on 05-17-15
-
No Apparent Distress
- A Doctor’s Coming-of-Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine
- By: Rachel Pearson MD
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gibel
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In medical charts, the term "N.A.D." (No Apparent Distress) is used for patients who appear stable. The phrase also aptly describes America's medical system when it comes to treating the underprivileged. Medical students learn on the bodies of the poor - and the poor suffer from their mistakes. Rachel Pearson confronted these harsh realities when she started medical school in Galveston, Texas.
-
-
I loved the candor of this book.
- By Anna on 05-24-18
-
The First Patient
- A Novel
- By: Michael Palmer
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gabe Singleton and Andrew Stoddard were roommates at the Naval Academy in Annapolis years ago. Today, Gabe is a country doctor and his friend Andrew has gone from war hero to governor to President of the United States. One day, Marine One lands on Gabe's Wyoming ranch, and President Stoddard delivers a disturbing revelation and a startling request.
-
-
Keep Your Political Views to Yourself
- By Donald Lopes on 05-27-08
By: Michael Palmer
Very poor narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.