What’s it like to operate on someone’s beating heart, while they’re still awake?
Brian Herman has spent his forty-year career doing just that – repairing failing hearts through the tiniest of incisions.
Amid dramatic stories of lives saved and lost, Herman also explores his own life path: struggling to find his way as a young man in the Bronx; professional ‘success’ that brought only burnout and disillusionment; finally, finding happiness and satisfaction as he built up the subspecialty of interventional cardiology in Launceston, Tasmania.
With engaging directness, Herman reflects on what it takes to work in the high-stakes theatre of the cath lab, on the judgement that comes from experience, and on what it’s like to become that guy: the one you call when all else has failed.
Brian Herman
About the author
After a career in private practice in the USA, Brian Herman MD PhD moved to Tasmania, where he was instrumental in bringing a cardiac training program to the north of the state. He became Director of Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology at a major public hospital there and Associate Professor of Cardiology at the University of Tasmania.