In his brief but distinguished life, Anton Chekhov was a doctor, a documentary essayist, an admired dramatist, and a humanitarian. He remains a nineteenth-century Russian literary giant whose prose continues to offer moral insight and to resonate with readers across the world.

Chekhov experienced no conflict between art and science or art and medicine. He believed that knowledge of one complemented the other. Chekhov brought medical knowledge and sensitivity to his creative writing--he had an intimate knowledge of the world of medicine and the skills of doctoring, and he utilized...

In the ER, the OR, and in the waiting room where the doctors deliver heart stopping news to the families of their patients, a neurosurgeon's apprenticeship is arduous. This memoir of the day-to-day experiences of a resident in neurosurgery at one of the nation's busiest trauma centers provides a rare window into the training of the doctors who open patients' skulls and operate on their brains and spinal cords. Paul Kaloostian's intimate account describes both the lifesaving feats and tragic failures that are the daily ups and downs of twenty-firstcentury neurosurgery. Kaloostian shares the...