Sometimes it hurts to give...and to receive. Really hurts. Judge Joseph Spencer needs a heart transplant. It s taken a lot of fast talking from his wife and doctor to convince him, but he s finally capitulated. While in preoperative holding and just minutes before his surgery, Spencer sees and recognizes the donor of his new heart. Spencer's sedation makes it impossible for him to protest this unimaginable horror, and he loses consciousness, unable to abort the procedure, even though to do so could cost him his life. Spencer s doctor, chief heart-transplant surgeon Ross Fairing, confronts his...

Sometimes it hurts to give...and to receive. Really hurts.

Judge Joseph Spencer needs a heart transplant. It's taken a lot of fast talking from his wife and doctor to convince him, but he's finally capitulated. While in preoperative holding and just minutes before his surgery, Spencer recognizes the donor of his new heart-a man guilty of a ruthless crime. Spencer's sedation makes it impossible for him to protest this unimaginable horror, and he loses consciousness before anything can be done.

Spencer's doctor, chief heart-transplant surgeon Ross Fairing, confronts his own consternation...

"Near Misses in Cardiac Surgery," best-seller in its field when originally published, has been reissued with a new foreword by Denton A. Cooley, M.D., Surgeon-in-Chief, Texas Heart Institute. Now endorsed by contemporary leaders in cardiac surgery, extracorporeal perfusion, and cardiology, "Near Misses in Cardiac Surgery" has stood the test of time and will introduce a new generation of cardiothoracic surgeons and interventionalists to principles, timeless as they are essential, that enable the outcomes of cardiothoracic procedures, once performed only by surgeons in the operating room, to be...