Cutting for Stone Discussion Question #1

[Carly Mendisco]

  Throughout the novel "Cutting For Stone", author Abraham Verghese, a very accomplished medical professor, used intellectual and complicated medical terminology that lead the reader into a slight pool of confusion. I, personally, had to go on the web and look up some of the words used during the surgery scenes because I had no clue what they were talking about, and I didn't want to miss out on what was happening during the procedures. Once I looked them up and read about them though, I realized how intense and frightening these surgeries can be. For example during Sister Mary's labor scene, the doctors had to perform an emergency Caesarean section because of how badly she was hemorrhaging. Verghese went in depth as to what was happening during the birth, and every last detail was accounted for once the conjoined twins were born and Sister Mary passed away.
    Tragedy in surgeries, while not as common as success, is very possible in any type of medical case. Like Sierra said, there's a show called "Grey's Anatomy", in which doctors have to go through the process of trying to save lives every day. There are the days though when the patient just physically and mentally can't go on though and either dies during surgery, or shortly thereafter due to complications.
   Overall, Verghese's use of this finely tuned language and attention to detail helped me gain a greater perspective of how things really are in the medical world. Literally anything can happen and you can't predict the future, so any surgery,  no matter how small, can be a gamble of someone's life. For someone like me who wants to pursue a career as a Nurse, I found that Verghese's execution of relating his novel's medical scenes to that of real life/ television was very impressive and intriguing to read.