A Surgeon's Prayer

This book is an astonishing combination of medical drama and spiritual searching. One of America’s leading neurosurgeons describes how, one day, he experienced an intense desire to pray together with his patients before an operation. Some were encouraged and delighted. For others, the suggestion from the attending physician was suspicious, irritating, and even frightening. Each chapter is devoted to specific real-life cases—with a detailed description of the diagnosis, an honest account by a professional about his doubts, fears, and mistakes, and, finally, the operations themselves and dramatic encounters with patients’ relatives. This is a genuinely interesting and noteworthy experience of a leading Christian neurosurgeon. An experience of doubts, searching, fateful medical errors, and a description of the strongest psychological dramas from medical practice. The book serves as a wonderful reminder of the fragility of our lives and the most important things in each person’s life—things better to do right away, without putting them off, lest it suddenly turn out to be too late.