OPEN HEART A Cardiac Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table

Narrator Gordon Griffin captures the empathy, frustration, and passion of Dr. Stephen Westaby, a pioneering heart surgeon in Britain. Westaby has conducted all manner of high-risk surgeries, including implanting artificial heart pumps before any other British doctor had done so. (The patients have no pulse afterwards!) He is snarky about bureaucrats who are more interested in keeping down costs than in doing anything new or investing in technology that save lives, and he has plenty of insults for the National Health Service. Griffin's narration is wonderful--lively and expressive, with an accent that suggests Westaby's working-class background. Griffin's timing and tone perfectly capture Westaby's wry, almost curmudgeonly, sense of humor--he quips that a patient is so sick he is unlikely to survive a haircut, but after an artificial heart is implanted, he lives for several years. A.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2017]