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.
Excellent BookOctober 30, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a well written and thoughtful book. The author does not include biased opinions but gives his insight from experience. Each chapter gives a different subject for you to view. The Dr. defines himself with each subject and is able to walk in the patients shoes. He talks about his ineptitudes (his standpoint) and opens his heart. A book you can easily read because this is another human being writing and not just another Doctor that places himself on a pedestal. I could not put it down.
Good Book.September 9, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Excellent read. (and i dont read much)Had it sent over here to Ireland. Heard Dr Hamilton on a pod cast and looked up the book. He's a really intresting guy, great to see a doctor with his attitude, and respect for his patients. Amazing true storys. Alot of them sad, but a great insight into the reactions of terminally ill people, as well as what the doctor may be thinking.
Great BookAugust 28, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I highly recommend this book! I am very careful now about purchasing books. It is extremely difficult to decide if a book is good based on its cover information. I depend a lot on reviews. Seems anyone and everyone is writing a book today. However, this author is very authentic and does not offend his readers. This book confirmed some of my own conclusions about life.
New MedecineJuly 25, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dr Hamilton is a very good story teller. He describes many esperieces of his life like a movie we can see. He tackle a spiritual way, not religious, to today medecine and it's nothing to be affraid of, it's only natural. He convinced us that the spirit is whole part of beeing sick and beeing healed.Very good book.
a must drop everything now and read immediately type of bookJune 17, 2008 3 out of 5 found this review helpful
i spent time after church sunday telling everyone i know about the book. i saw it on a local early morning talk with the author on the tv (i live in the same city as the author--tucson). ordered it the next day.
amazing. brutally honest perceptive to the max. i cried more than once ( i usually only cry at funerals) an example of a man who is paying attention to the world and people around him. we are truely blessed to have this insight into his world.
about 1/2 through i was sure that this is the result of a people who have journalled and interacted with his experience and a conscious and meticulous way, sure enough, in the appendix is a line about his 20 volumes of journals kept at his grandfather's impetus since he was an early teen...a big recommendation for keeping a journal and making it a significant part of your intellectual and spiritual development.
the medical schools and doctor's unions could do no better of a thing then to declare tomorrow a stand down day like the military does and require all physicans to read this book and discuss it with each other and the patients.
a big thank you to the author for being so self disclosing and honest with us (and i suspect with himself)
i for one will be looking for venues he is speaking at to hear him lecture...
