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    Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years
    Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years
    Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years
    Audiobook9 hours

    Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years

    Written by Michael J. Collins, MD

    Narrated by John Pruden

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When Michael Collins decides to become a surgeon, he is totally unprepared for the chaotic life of a resident at a major hospital. A natural overachiever, Collins's success, in college and medical school led to a surgical residency at one of the most respected medical centers in the world, the famed Mayo Clinic. But compared to his fellow residents Collins feels inadequate and unprepared. All too soon, the euphoria of beginning his career as an orthopedic resident gives way to the feeling he is a counterfeit, an imposter who has infiltrated a society of brilliant surgeons.

    This story of Collins's four-year surgical residency traces his rise from an eager but clueless first-year resident to accomplished Chief Resident in his final year. With unparalleled humor, he recounts the disparity between people's perceptions of a doctor's glamorous life and the real thing: a succession of run down cars that are towed to the junk yard, long weekends moonlighting at rural hospitals, a family that grows larger every year, and a laughable income.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateFeb 14, 2017
    ISBN9781515988151
    Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years

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    Reviews for Hot Lights, Cold Steel

    4.5/5

    120 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Fabulous book, very well written and narrated. I Loved it
    • 4/5
      I loved learning about his career. How honest he was about it. No one tells you about how you financially “get by” in the years of being a resident. He did a great job navigating us through his struggles; family, career and personal. He did a great job explaining his triumphs as well. I wish there were a little more patient stories. But in the end, as he says, it was worth it!
    • 4/5
      An entertaining and human account of the trials and tribulations of an orthopedic resident in the beginning of his illustrious career. I loved the medical stories but did. Ot care about the countless children the author fathered (12 total he ended up fathering. One every year). I did love the humor in the book, it was so wisely sprinkled around and came just at the right time. It was a very illuminating and entertaining book. I recommend it to anyone contemplating a medical career as well as anyone who is just interested in medical stories.
    • 5/5
      The author has a lot of kids - this book chronicles the juggling of the kids, being a resident, and moonlighting to support his family.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic book of his humble beginnings at the Mayo clinic to chief resident...in a word...inspiring
    • 3/5
      This is a raw, frequently medically graphic, account of his years as a resident at the Mayo Clinic. If you are squeamish, this is not the book for you.
    • 3/5
      In Hot Lights, Cold Steel, Dr. Michael Collins recounts his four years of medical residency as an orthopedic resident at the world renowned Mayo Clinic. In addition to stories about cases during his residency, Collins also interjects snippets of his life with his wife and ever growing family as well as his stints of moonlighting in a rural hospital 90 miles away. Collins’ memoir is an interesting glimpse into the life of medical residents, an area of medicine that I think doesn’t get a lot of attention. Residents are in between medical students and practicing physicians. They know a lot of textbook knowledge, but have yet to apply it in the field. Collins’ does a good job of showing the reader how terrifying and yet exhilarating the process is of becoming a real surgeon.Collins’ memoir is full of stories that are both humorous and heart breaking. For every silly drunk he encounters, there is the sad story of an 18 year old beautiful cancer patient. Collins’ uses these stories to also contemplate on the futility of many of the things that doctor’s do. In the end, we all go to the same place. Yet Collins’ fights the good fight because he knows nothing else. He can’t stop trying to fix things, no matter what the eventual outcome.Hot Lights, Cold Steel is overall a solid memoir of medical residency. Some of the language is complex and may lose readers who don’t want to look up specific knee muscles. Regardless, I would still recommend the title to anyone who has an interesting in personal medical stories.
    • 4/5
      Michael Collins' memoir of his years as a resident at the Mayo Clinic is heartbreaking one minute and hilarious the next. He is a credit to his Irish storytelling heritage.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of Michael Collins' orthopedic residency at Mayo Clinic. A really interesting read.
    • 3/5
      This was a moderately interesting story of one man's experience as an orthopaedic surgery resident at the Mayo Clinic. While it ultimately is a very quick read, it does suggest that hard (perhaps even obsessive) work will result in success more often than not. It also suggests that even high flying surgeons are insecure about their own abilities. This latter point is not at all reassuring to anyone who has any cause to have a medical procedure in the near future. Overall, this started well and the narrative held my attention, but it ended too abruptly for my taste.