ARE YOU LISTENING? MONDAY MORNINGS: A REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S" 
ARE YOU LISTENING? DAY" 
I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE TODAY'S 
AUDIO BOOK CHOICE....

  GIVEAWAY ENDED 
MONDAY MORNINGS

An Audio Book Novel

BY DR. SANJAY GUPTA

 Read By Christian Rummel

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Every time surgeons operate, they're betting their skills are better than the brain tumor, the faulty heart valve, the fractured femur. Sometimes, they're wrong. At Chelsea General, surgeons answer for bad outcomes at the Morbidity and Mortality conference, known as M & M. This extraordinary peek behind the curtain into what is considered the most secretive meeting in all of medicine is the back drop for the entire book. 

Monday Mornings, by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, follows the lives of five surgeons at Chelsea General as they push the limits of their abilities and confront their personal and professional failings, often in front of their peers at M & M. It is on Monday mornings that reflection and introspection occurs, usually in private. It is Monday Mornings that provides a unique look at the real method in which surgeons learn - through their mistakes. It is Monday Mornings when, if you're lucky, you have a chance at redemption.


AN EXCERPT FROM MONDAY MORNINGS:

THE EMTS CRASHED THROUGH the swinging bay doors of the emergency room. Wearing bright blue polyester jumpsuits with a yellow insignia on the left front pocket and standard-issue black boots, they were moving fast. It was impossible to miss the concern, and also the soot, on their young faces. Wherever they were, there had clearly been smoke, probably a fire. Between them was a woman on a gurney, in a silver reflective thermal cocoon. An IV bag, slowly dripping into plastic tubing connected to her arm, swayed wildly on a pole as they wheeled her toward the center of the crowded emergency room.

It was only when you saw the ER from the top that you understood the ingenuity of the layout. It was not a single room, but an apparent maze designed like a large round tire with a series of spokes. There were rooms around the periphery; patients were placed closer and closer to the middle depending on how critical they were. This woman was coming to the epicenter.

"I got an attempted suicide. Single vehicle into a telephone pole." The EMT's voice carried across the ER, above the urgent voices of doctors and nurses, the moans of patients, a crying baby, the beeping monitors, the adjoining waiting room's blaring television.

Dr. George Villanueva was the man who lived and worked in the center of the ER, and his eyes were on the woman even before the words reached him.

This excerpt is from CNN.com. Visit HERE to read the complete excerpt. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

SANJAY GUPTA, MD, is a practicing neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital and associate chief of service at Grady Memorial Hospital. A columnist for TIME magazine and a chief medical correspondent at CNN, he lives in Atlanta, GA. To read more about Dr. Gupta, please visit his "bio" page on at CNN HERE.

MY THOUGHTS/REVIEW: MONDAY MORNINGS by Dr. Sanjay Gupta is his first novel and is set in the fictional Chelsea General Hospital in Michigan.  The main plot centers on five doctors who treat a variety of patients with different illnesses and conditions. In this group of leading neurosurgeons who are well respected at this teaching hospital, Gupta created characters that were layered and far from perfect. It was nice to read about doctors who are just like the rest of us without any superhuman abilities and qualities as they are so often depicted.

The doctors reflect on how well they function in the operating theater when the Monday Morning Morbidity and Mortality conference group meets normally every three weeks. Here is where at any given time, one doctor or another can be held responsible for their work and discussed in front of their fellow physicians. In these private meetings attended only by the doctors on the staff, no administrators or lawyers are present. The meeting is meant to find out what may have gone wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. Of course, this is not as simple as it sounds as each doctor has their own personal demons and reputation to deal with. Coming before this board is normally quite stressful. In MONDAY MORNINGS when one doctor is being held responsible for the death of a young boy, his confidence is shook to the core and he doubts his ability to continue his practice.

MONDAY MORNINGS benefits from Dr. Gupta’s own vast knowledge and experience as a neurosurgeon to add reality to the narrative. At times, he may have oversimplified a few things and that was a bit troublesome as I felt like I was being talked down to. Overall, however, MONDAY MORNINGS is a solid dramatic novel with suspense and even romance inserted into the theme. It was an easy read and keeps the reader involved. I enjoyed it on audio book a great deal thanks to the expertise of Christian Rummel, the narrator. He presented an entertaining story to listen to through his talent of making different doctors “speak” in a way that one might expect them to sound. His reading was convincing while also engaging. With Dr. Gupta’s massive amount of medical knowledge, I hope he will write more fiction because I enjoy a good medical thriller. With more fictional writing experience, his narrative will improve and the stories will be even more exciting.  

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO MITCH AND MY FRIENDS AT

HACHETTE AUDIO, I HAVE ONE COPY OF 

MONDAY MORNINGS, BY DR. SANJAY GUPTA,

TO GIVE AWAY TO ONE LUCKY FOLLOWER

 

--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY --NO P. O. BOXES, PLEASE --INCLUDE EMAIL ADDRESS IN COMMENT --ALL ENTRIES/COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE IN ORDER TO COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE ENTRY

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: READ ABOUT THE AUDIO BOOK ABOVE AND COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOUT MONDAY MORNINGS THAT WOULD MAKE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS AUDIO BOOK

+1 MORE ENTRY: BLOG OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND LEAVE A LINK I CAN FOLLOW IN THE ENTRY

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FIND INTERESTING AT DR. SANHAY GUPTA'S BLOG ON THE CNN HEALTH WEBSITE HERE +1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE CURRENT GIVEAWAY OF MINE YOU HAVE ENTERED. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, COMMENT SEPARATELY FOR EACH AND YOU WILL GET AN ENTRY FOR EACH ONE

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY

 

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT   6 PM, EST, JUNE 29

GOOD LUCK!