Overview

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.

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9798200051014

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Reviews

A medical thriller of the first order.-- ""Kirkus Starred Review""

"A medical thriller of the first order.-- ""Kirkus Starred Review"""

Author Information

Kevin Fong, MD, is co-director of the Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine. A fellow of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, he is an honorary lecturer in physiology at University College London. Extreme Medicine is his first book. Jonathan Cowley is a British actor based in Los Angeles. He is an accomplished audiobook narrator, having recorded over fifty audiobook titles and he has received AudioFile Earphones Awards for his narration of The Science of Evil by Simon Baron-Cohen, The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart and The Angry Chef's Guide to spotting Bullsh*t in the World of Food by Anthony Warner. He is also an active TV/film actor having appeared in TV shows including Criminal Minds, Grey's Anatomy, Veep, and WestWorld, and films including Notorious Nick and Backseat. Jonathan Cowley is a British actor based in Los Angeles. He is an accomplished audiobook narrator, having recorded over fifty audiobook titles and he has received AudioFile Earphones Awards for his narration of The Science of Evil by Simon Baron-Cohen, The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart and The Angry Chef's Guide to spotting Bullsh*t in the World of Food by Anthony Warner. He is also an active TV/film actor having appeared in TV shows including Criminal Minds, Grey's Anatomy, Veep, and WestWorld, and films including Notorious Nick and Backseat.

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