A Miracle and a Privilege: Recounting a Half Century of Surgical Advance - Hardcover

Moore, Francis D.

9780309051880: A Miracle and a Privilege: Recounting a Half Century of Surgical Advance

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0309051886 ISBN 13: 9780309051880

Publisher: Joseph Henry Press, 1995

Francis Moore entered Harvard Medical School in September of 1935, seven years before penicillin became available. During his remarkable career in surgery, research, and education, Moore has witnessed and contributed to some of the most important biomedical advances of the century, and his students now practice surgery worldwide. In this autobiography, he brings humor and warmth to the story of a lifetime at the forefront of medicine.

In this fascinating book Moore describes his work in radioactive isotope research, burn therapy, breast cancer treatment, transplant science, and understanding the process of convalescence.

Moore's colleagues have included such medical pioneers as George Thorn, David Hume, Thomas Starzl, John Gibbon, Steven Rosenberg, Harold Urey, and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Murray, and he recounts the setbacks and victories of their work. For example, he writes of the adventure he had with Charles Hufnagel in which 25 dogs, implanted with Hufnagel's experimental heart valves, made their escape into the Connecticut countryside and had to be recovered by dog control officers wielding stethoscopes.

Yet Moore recalls with equal clarity the young mother who gave him a silver dollar for delivering her baby, the husband who begged that his ailing wife be allowed to die with dignity, and the desperately sick patients who made themselves available for experimental surgery and treatment. In one of his early operations he relieved "the pain, anguish, and threat to a wonderful small boy" by removing the boy's diseased appendix. He describes this capability as "a miracle and a privilege."

The book includes a gripping account of the aftermath of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston in 1942, when Moore learned the horrific details of death by fire. He recounts both his experience with M.A.S.H. units and battalion aid stations in Korea and the sudden request from the U.S. State Department that resulted in his treating King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia.

Moore's life story reflects his serious commitment to human well-being as well as his appreciation for the wonder of human life. Physicians, medical students, and all readers alike will find this book informative and inspirational.

Francis Daniels Moore, M.D., is Moseley Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School and Surgeon-in-Chief, Emeritus, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston.

Table of Contents

Front Matter
Book I: Student of Man
Book II: Middlewesterner: Born, Bred, Schooled, Wed
Book III: First Years in Clinical Surgery
Book IV: Basic Research and Academic Life
Book V: Professor of Surgery
Book VI: Transplantation
Book VII: Heart Disease and Cancer
Book VIII: Surgery Abroad and Back Home
Book IX: Big News
Book X: Things Do Change
Notes and References
Photo Credits
Also by Francis D. Moore
Index
Plates

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About the Author:

Francis D. Moore, M.D., is Moseley Professor of Surgery Emeritus, Harvard Medical School.

From Booklist:

Researcher and surgeon Moore's is an informative, enjoyable autobiography. Born into wealth near Chicago, Moore became a New Englander by virtue of education and career. He made his mark early, becoming Moseley Professor of Surgery at Harvard and chief of surgery at the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital shortly before his thirty-fifth birthday. His major contributions include the pioneer research on body composition using radioactive isotopes, research and clinical studies of convalescence and the treatment of burns, and early work on kidney transplantation. This is, however, more than an individual's autobiography, since Moore, partly because of his organizational and governmental work, had a stimulating and supportive effect on many other important individuals as well as projects. Refreshingly, despite his major roles in many activities, Moore can tell amusing stories on himself. Moreover, with King Ibn Saud among his patients and many travels throughout the world to his credit, Moore has had a career as widespread geographically as it is diverse surgically, administratively, and philosophically. William Beatty

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