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Title details for Extreme Medicine by Kevin Fong, MD - Available

Extreme Medicine

How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century

by Kevin Fong, MD
Jonathan Cowley
Audiobook
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Little more than one hundred years ago, maps of the world still boasted white space: places where no human had ever trod. Within a few short decades the most hostile of the world's environments had all been conquered. Likewise, in the twentieth century, medicine transformed human life. Doctors took what was routinely fatal and made it survivable. As modernity brought us ever more into different kinds of extremes, doctors pushed the bounds of medical advances and human endurance. Extreme exploration challenged the body in ways that only the vanguard of science could answer. Doctors, scientists, and explorers all share a defining trait: they push on in the face of grim odds. Because of their extreme exploration we not only understand our physiology better; we have also made enormous strides in the science of healing.

Drawing on his own experience as an anesthesiologist, intensive care expert, and NASA adviser, Dr. Kevin Fong examines how cutting-edge medicine pushes the envelope of human survival by studying the human body's response when tested by physical extremes. Extreme Medicine explores different limits of endurance and the lens each offers on one of the systems of the body. The challenges of Arctic exploration created opportunities for breakthroughs in open heart surgery; battlefield doctors pioneered techniques for skin grafts, heart surgery, and trauma care; underwater and outer space exploration have revolutionized our understanding of breathing, gravity, and much more. Avant-garde medicine is fundamentally changing our ideas about the nature of life and death.

Through astonishing accounts of extraordinary events and pioneering medicine, Fong illustrates the sheer audacity of medical practice at extreme limits, where human life is balanced on a knife's edge. Extreme Medicine is a gripping debut about the science of healing, but also about exploration in its broadest sense—and about how, by probing the very limits of our biology, we may ultimately return with a better appreciation of how our bodies work, of what life is, and what it means to be human.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 6, 2014

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781452698144
      • File size: 219410 KB
      • Duration: 07:37:06

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      British doctor Kevin Fong, an adviser for NASA, has an extraordinary knack for telling breathtaking tales of macho medicine. His stories of London bombings, last-minute ice rescues, possible trips to Mars, and scuba diving danger will keep listeners fully engaged. Narrator Jonathan Cowley has a cultured, but completely comprehensible, British accent. His voice is always pleasing, but the high drama of Fong's tales inspires a breathless cadence that can be slightly distracting. The text has been imperfectly "translated" for an American audience, but the flaws are minor. Fong's science is solid and easy to understand, and his inclusion of personal and family experiences in his stories of medical derring-do works well. He's disciplined enough to make himself a witness without becoming the center of attention. F.C. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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