The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural, and the Healing Power of Hope | 
| Author: Allan J. Hamilton
Creator: Andrew Weil
Publisher: Tarcher
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 3054
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 1585426156
Dewey Decimal Number: 617.48092
EAN: 9781585426157
ASIN: 1585426156
Publication Date: March 13, 2008
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Product Description
A Harvard-educated neurosurgeon reveals his experiences-in and out of the operating room-with apparitions, angels, exorcism, and after-death survival, and shares the lessons he learned.
A young burn victim remains in a coma until a ghost appears.
A doctor discovers he can predict when a patient will die.
A clinically dead patient later recounts extraordinary details about the private lives of her caregivers.
A physician needs the help of a Navajo shaman to exorcise the spirit of his dead patient.
These things really happened-and neurosurgeon Allan J. Hamilton was involved in every one of them, and many more. Based on thirty years of medical experience, The Scalpel and the Soul tells the unspoken stories behind remarkable patients and strange events, and shares the moral and spiritual lessons found in them.
For physicians, supernatural inklings and intrusions are disturbing. Doctors cannot be candid with colleagues or patients because they are trained to disregard the inexplicable and unbelievable. They're taught to discount elusive, evanescent powers of the soul. Superstition, omens, and divine spirits smack of madness.
But patients have the same experiences. Life-threatening illness or surgery frequently brings dormant spirituality to life. The soul often needs more than intensive care alone can give. The Scalpel and the Soul explores how premonition, superstition, hope, and faith not only become factors in how patients feel but can change outcomes; it validates the spiritual manifestations physicians see every day; it empowers patients to voice their spiritual needs when they seek medical help; and, finally, it addresses the mysterious, attractive powers the soul exerts during life-threatening events.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Great Book May 16, 2008
This is one of the most informative, honest, and best written books that I have ever read. Everyone who is interested in the medical field should get a copy right away. I hope he writes another book very soon.
 A good read. May 16, 2008
I thought the book was good. I was expecting more stories about the author's depciction of the afterlife through his patients experiences. I was pleasantly suprised on the stories of hope and love instead. We'll written and hartwarming.
 Wise and thoughtful! May 9, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A wonderful read by a medical doctor (neurosurgeon), whom isn't so full of himself and his educational/professional accomplishments, that he can't step back and acknowledge that there is more to life and living than mere biological/physical processes. Dr. Hamilton does not appear to have a God complex and thus presents himself as a learned friend with the same complexities and foibles that his patients exhibit. My only problem with the book is that Dr. Hamilton only presents a handful of accounts that deeply affected him and gets a bit wordy in the hyperbole department. That is why I gave 4 stars instead of 5. Otherwise an eye opening, thought provoking and accessible book. I hope he follows this book up with some more scintillating accounts.
An honest doctor story April 24, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you like books by Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande, you may like this book. But this book focuses on the part of medicine we can't explain, rather than trying to explain more about medicine.
If you like your medical orientation the Andrew Weil way, you will probably like this book. Weil wrote the introduction and the author shares much or Weil's philosophy.
As others have noted, the best parts of the book are (a) the story about the woman who was supposed to die in 4 months; she lived to attend her doctor's own funeral and died at 88; and (b) the recommendations for ordinary people who become patients. I've always suspected we're better off if we stay away from hospitals and retain a healthy skepticism about doctors.
Readers may be concerned about the author's advice to pray with their doctors. Given the limited amount of time available to get questions answered, some of us might prefer to focus on topics that doctors are uniquely qualified to discuss. That whole area is controversial and it's one chapter I wish had been deleted from this book.
Generally, though, I recommend Scalpel and the Soul as yet another contribution to the "skeptical books about the medical profession written by doctors." A valuable corrective to those who continue to see doctors as the contemporary version of the Roman gods.
The other side of the scalpel April 22, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Author Allan J. Hamilton's own journey which led him to write this book is so fascinating in itself. I never really believed in coincidence and this book shows that everything happens just as it is meant to be.
Really interesting book.
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