Reviews for Cheating Death: The Doctors and Medical Miracles That Are Saving Lives Against All Odds

The average rating for Cheating Death: The Doctors and Medical Miracles That Are Saving Lives Against All Odds based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-08-27 00:00:00 David Scott This is important. What I learned of great importance is that people who die from lack of effective CPR after a heart attack do so for two reasons. The first is that unrelated bystanders seeing someone collapse are unwilling to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in case they catch something. The other reason is that mouth-to-mouth CPR is very ineffective. The blood holds enough oxygen to keep the brain going for a while, which it can't do without a beating heart is circulate the blood. Forget the mouth-to-mouth and give constant compressions.This is the most effective form of CPR until professional help or a defibrillator is available. At the beginning of open heart surgery, the procedure had to be done very quickly until it was discovered that if the person was cooled right down, the whole body had much less need of oxygen and the circulation that made it possible. Chilling the body is now used for all sorts of things in hospitals although some still do not accept its medical efficacy. People have survived drowning incidents of more than an hour because they were chilled in the water. Chilling stroke patients with cold blankets, anything, can help with survival. There is much else in the book including prenatal surgery on the forming baby, which is fascinating and an area that will definitely grow, to discussions of longevity. The book is full of anecdotes and human stories as much as research and is a really good read from that aspect as well as for the insights it provides.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-06-23 00:00:00 Dean Lakovic Through true stories, the author takes the reader on a wild ride into what looks like science -fiction of modern medecine. From hypothermia and the struggles doctors are facing to get it approved to the man who would've remained a vegetable if it was not to the tenacity of his doctor, Sanjay Gupta MD narrates many experiences both patients and their doctors share. I really liked the first chapter about Mads Gilbert who is an inspiration, the way he handled his patients and the devotion and non giving up he showed everytime. The near-death experience part was also very interesting, sometimes pretty much unbelievable, still nagging the researchers. Overall, this is a good book that I recommend to any curious soul.