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    Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century
    Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century
    Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century
    Audiobook7 hours

    Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century

    Written by Kevin Fong, MD

    Narrated by Jonathan Cowley

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateFeb 6, 2014
    ISBN9781452688145
    Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century

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    Reviews for Extreme Medicine

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      My medical student friend in the UK posted a picture of herself with this rather attractive author on facebook, and I was inclined to investigate his book. The premise of the book reminded me of books I have read and enjoyed by [[Atul Gawande]] so I was pleased to see such a recent publication available at my library. Really though, it could have been called "Collection of Interesting Medical Anecdotes". However, he has chosen to group the anecdotes under chapters involving various situations we humans put ourselves in and what happens when we take it to the extreme. Ie, water, fire, space, cold, space. The author is a former student of astrophysics, as well as now being a doctor, so his chapters on space and its effects on the body are comprehensive and really very interesting. Great for general knowledge quiz fodder. It was all very accessible as far as medical readings go, and has a chatty feel to it. Spattered with humourous quips and some personal stories, it wasn't hard going at all. The reading list at the back is huge, so we know he has done his research.
    • 4/5
      Interesting book. I liked some of the earlier chapters best but the book in general covers a variety of medical specialties. The author is knowledgeable and has an combination of medical and scientific expertise. I was particularly interested in the areas of face transplant, physiological concerns associated with a Mars mission, and hypothermia reactions. I appreciated the historical perspective on advances in medicine. There is a bit of overemphasis on NASA related activity but this is understandable since the author worked for NASA. I would recommend the book.
    • 4/5
      The subtitle of this book is a little misleading; while the medicine described is (or was when it was first developed) extreme, very little of it was actually brought about by exploration. The first chapter, ‘Ice’ starts with the exploration of Antarctica, which did teach us a lot about dealing with extreme cold and hypothermia, which eventually led to the use of hypothermia during radical surgeries and other treatments. ‘Fire’, which tells about the beginnings of plastic surgery and skin grafts, is based in WW 1 and how many pilots were burned beyond recognition when their planes burnt around them in battle. ‘Trauma’ shows us the first ambulance use in the Napoleonic Wars and how the trauma protocol was invented by a doctor who crashed the small plane he was flying with his family as passengers. Polio led to life support machines and ICU style care- supporting vital systems to give the body time to heal itself. Still, even though the title isn’t accurate, it’s an interesting book. The author jumps around a lot; it’s not a smooth narrative. Sometimes he gives a historical account, sometimes he writes about his own experiences (and he has had a lot of experiences; he got a degree in physics before he turned to medicine and has worked with NASA), sometimes he tells us about what happens to the body in these extreme situations. Those were the parts I found most fascinating, especially in the ‘Ice’ chapter, when he recounts how a skier went hypothermic to the point that her heart stopped, but because she was so cold, brain damage did not occur even though she went three hours without a heartbeat. An interesting book but it wanders a bit.
    • 4/5
      My medical student friend in the UK posted a picture of herself with this rather attractive author on facebook, and I was inclined to investigate his book. The premise of the book reminded me of books I have read and enjoyed by [[Atul Gawande]] so I was pleased to see such a recent publication available at my library. Really though, it could have been called "Collection of Interesting Medical Anecdotes". However, he has chosen to group the anecdotes under chapters involving various situations we humans put ourselves in and what happens when we take it to the extreme. Ie, water, fire, space, cold, space. The author is a former student of astrophysics, as well as now being a doctor, so his chapters on space and its effects on the body are comprehensive and really very interesting. Great for general knowledge quiz fodder. It was all very accessible as far as medical readings go, and has a chatty feel to it. Spattered with humourous quips and some personal stories, it wasn't hard going at all. The reading list at the back is huge, so we know he has done his research.
    • 3/5
      I won this book so decided to read it. I also recognised Dr Kevin Fong from a show he did on television. I enjoyed the book and the philosophy he was explaining. I understood it all which was fortunate. The second half of the book spoke of space more and this doesn't really interest me. He was an astro-physicist before becoming a doctor.