When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery

Great, tough read. The chapter about the baby though, my goodness. One of the sadder things I've ever read.

A fascinating insight into the world of neurosurgery. Devastating cases, surprising cases, bizarre cases. In a way it made me realise how simple and routine and safe my own job is.

When the Air Hits Your Brain is not about the technology, it isn't even really about the medicine. It's about the human aspect of disease, the human dimension of those who suffer from it, and the human dimension of those neophytes, like me, who learn to treat it. And that dimension is timeless.

I enjoyed reading this book much more than I was expecting to! 
The first half of this book was more about surgery as a whole and how Dr. Vertosick ended up becoming a neurosurgeon (because that wasn't his initial plan) but the second half was more about anectodes and felt like your senior telling you crazy stories from their life.
Something about his narrative felt very genuine to me, the empathy he holds for each patient. Those stories really touched me. 
I also loved the way he talks about death and cancer. It was fascinating to read about. Lots of quotes to post from this book.

Highly recommend if you're interested.

Failure instructs better than success. A single death shapes the surgeon's psyche in a way that fifty “saves” cannot.