Life on a Knife’s Edge
A Brain Surgeon’s Reflections on Life, Loss and Survival
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Narrated by:
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Rahul Jandial
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By:
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Dr Rahul Jandial
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
As one of the world's leading brain surgeons, Dr Jandial is the last hope for many patients who have extreme forms of cancer - patients who can't be saved, but deserve more time.
Life on a Knife's Edge is his account of the resilience, courage and belief he has witnessed in his patients, and the lessons he has learned from them.
Both an unflinching account of extreme surgeries and a profound, moving and introspective memoir, this book reveals the depths of a surgeon's psyche who is pushed to his limits, day in, day out.
From keeping a gun victim's heart pumping with his own hand to saving a woman from paralysis and performing brain surgery while time is running out on a haemorrhaging patient, we see how making life and death decisions and facing unimaginable pressure has shaped one man's life. Now, he shares the many truths about human nature that he has learned along the way: from how we deal with trauma, loss and threat to our innate belief and sense of self.
From a life spent balancing on the line between life and death, above all else, he reveals what it really means to survive.
©2021 Rahul Jandial (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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At one time heart disease was a death sentence. By the middle of the 20th century, it was killing millions, and, as with the Black Death centuries before, physicians stood helpless. Visionaries, though, had begun to make strides earlier. On September 7, 1895, Ludwig Rehn successfully sutured the heart of a living man with a knife wound to the chest for the first time.
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Great review of the landmark achievements in Cardiology.
- By Trauma NP on 12-14-15
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Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them)
- A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying
- By: Sallie Tisdale
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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You get ready to die the way you get ready for a trip. Start by realizing you don't know the way. Listen to a few travel guides. Study the language, look at maps, gather equipment. Let yourself imagine what it will be like. Pack your bags. This book is one of those travel guides - a guide to preparing for your own death and the deaths of people close to you. The fact of death is hard to believe. Sallie Tisdale explores our fears and all the ways death and talking about death make us uncomfortable - but she also explores its intimacies and joys.
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I thought I had more time...
- By Alyssa on 09-09-19
By: Sallie Tisdale
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Falling into the Fire
- A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis
- By: Christine Montross
- Narrated by: Christine Montross
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Falling into the Fire is psychiatrist Christine Montross's thoughtful investigation of the gripping patient encounters that have challenged and deepened her practice. Beautifully written, deeply felt, Falling into the Fire brings us inside the doctor’s mind, illuminating the grave human costs of mental illness as well as the challenges of diagnosis and treatment. At once rigorous and meditative, Falling into the Fire is an intimate portrait of psychiatry, allowing the reader to witness the humanity of the practice and the enduring mysteries of the mind.
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Buy this book! and READ it
- By joyce on 08-15-13
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Patient Care
- Death and Life in the Emergency Room
- By: Paul Seward MD
- Narrated by: Jim Seybert
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Recalling remarkable cases - and people - from a career launched in the first days of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Paul Seward leads us in his memoir through suspenseful diagnoses and explorations of anatomy. Within the conditions of great stress and rapid decision-making that are routine in the ER, Dr. Seward tells us that medical staff must be more than technicians of the body: They must be restorers of the human.
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very enjoyable
- By Patricia Oxenham on 03-21-19
By: Paul Seward MD
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Birth Day
- A Pediatrician Explores the Science, the History, and the Wonder of Childbirth
- By: Mark Sloan MD
- Narrated by: Mark Sloan MD
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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"I delivered twenty babies in the summer of 1977. I was hardly more than a baby myself, just turned 24 and starting my third year of medical school." So began Mark Sloan's three-decades-long exploration of the wonders and oddities of human childbirth. Pediatrician, husband, and father, the author has attended nearly 3000 births since that long-ago summer, encountering everything from routine deliveries to tense labor-room dramas.
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Great Book - Heavy on the History
- By Robert Ingalls on 03-16-17
By: Mark Sloan MD
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Blood and Guts
- A History of Surgery
- By: Richard Hollingham
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, astonishing surgical breakthroughs are making limb transplants, face transplants, and a host of other previously undreamed-of operations possible. But getting here has not been a simple story of medical progress. In Blood and Guts, veteran science writer Richard Hollingham weaves a compelling narrative from the key moments in surgical history. We have a ringside seat in the operating theater of University College Hospital in London as world-renowned Victorian surgeon Robert Liston performs a remarkable amputation in 30 seconds - from first cut to final stitch.
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I love this book!
- By Kristin on 08-25-19
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Early
- An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human
- By: Sarah DiGregorio
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The heart of many hospitals is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It is a place where humanity, ethics, and science collide in dramatic and deeply personal ways as parents, doctors, and nurses grapple with sometimes unanswerable questions: When does life begin? When and how should life end? And what does it mean to be human? Nearly 20 years ago, Dr. John D. Lantos wrote The Lazarus Case, a seminal work on ethical dilemmas in neonatology. He described the NICU as “a strong, strange, powerful place”. The
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Gripping read for this late preterm infant mom
- By R. Ash on 08-08-21
By: Sarah DiGregorio
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The Undead
- Organ Harvesting, The Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers - How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
- By: Dick Teresi
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear - and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.
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Eye opening
- By Amy Giglio on 07-01-18
By: Dick Teresi
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Rise and Shine
- The Path to Life
- By: Simon Lewis
- Narrated by: Kelsey Grammer
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Crushed between a truck and a tree, Simon and his wife were both pronounced dead at the scene of a horrific car accident. Enduring a broken skull, jaw, arms, clavicle and pelvis, followed by a coma, Simon lives to tell his remarkable journey from tragedy to triumph.
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Amazing opportunities for healing!
- By Leah on 04-29-17
By: Simon Lewis
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One Doctor
- Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine
- By: Brendan Reilly
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An epic story told by a unique voice in American medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physician. In riveting first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes us to the front lines of medicine today.
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Simply Brilliant
- By Jan on 06-20-14
By: Brendan Reilly
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The Last Best Cure
- My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life
- By: Donna Jackson Nakazawa
- Narrated by: Karen Saltus
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One day Donna Jackson Nakazawa found herself lying on the floor to recover from climbing the stairs. That’s when it hit her. She was managing the symptoms of the autoimmune disorders that had plagued her for a decade, but she had lost her joy. As a science journalist, she was curious to know what mind-body strategies might help her. As a wife and mother she was determined to get her life back. Over the course of one year, Nakazawa researches and tests a variety of therapies including meditation, yoga, and acupuncture to find out what works.
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Amazing book, but struggled with the voice.
- By erin norton on 01-05-18
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State of the Heart
- Exploring the History, Science, and Future of Cardiac Disease
- By: Haider Warraich
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
In State of the Heart, the journey to rid the world of heart disease is shown to be reflective of the journey of medical science at large. We are learning not only that women have as much heart disease as men, but that the type of heart disease women experience is diametrically different from that in men. We are learning that heart disease and cancer may have more in common than we could have imagined. And we are learning how human evolution itself may have led to the epidemic of heart disease
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Good information, bad organization
- By Conor Cox on 09-03-19
By: Haider Warraich
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What listeners say about Life on a Knife’s Edge
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 08-24-21
Intriguing
What a journey! Intense yet eye opening, skillful maneuvers between life lessons and medicine.
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- Joshua R Homes
- 08-09-21
Worthwhile Read But Heavy
This book was good but heavy. Good learning lessons, good compelling stories. Heavy content that doesn’t make you feel warm inside.
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- Michele Matheson
- 12-12-23
Wonderfully shared
This is a very thoughtful and wonderfully shared book that I highly recommend. The author covers deep subjects that are not often spoken about but should be. Thank you Dr. Jandial.
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- Gary W Taylor
- 11-11-21
Listening better than reading this book.
Loved it. Narration was great. I appreciated the author expressing his vulnerabilities and humanity. I believe I would have missed out on some of the nuances by only reading this book.
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- Dan
- 08-15-21
an extraordinary doctor yet so humble and kind
took me back early in my life dealing with my father cancer Made me understand and heal my journey through all Merci merci to had more peace to myself and move on to new challenges with more knowledge 🙏
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- Anonymous User
- 05-14-22
Heartstring pulling, inspirational, informative
Not quite what I expected but an amazing book that I'm blessed to have listened to
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- James
- 12-04-22
great learning
awesome read. alot to learn. alot to grow from as a person. super human story.
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- E C
- 03-08-23
A Unique Way of Teaching
Dr. Rahul Jandial,
Thank you for taking us into your mind & behind the curtains, on your every day journey! Enjoyed listening to the stories very much! I was stressed. I cried. Thank you for the unique way of teaching us, about the brain.
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- tamar brown
- 03-11-24
Changed my life
I have Never been so moved by a book. It has had a great impact on my life. I have suffered much grief and depression, and this somehow has given me a new way of dealing with life.
Perfection! I am encouraging everyone I know to listen or read this book. Thank you,
Sincerely, Tamar Brown
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- Brenda
- 07-17-21
Amazing
One of the best audible books I have heard.
I highly recommend this to anyone!
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2 people found this helpful