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HEALING HEARTS with Dr. Kathy Magliato

A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon By KATHY E. MAGLIATO, MD Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of a handful of female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. As a member of an even more exclusive group—she is one of the few cardiothoracic surgeons specially trained to perform heart transplants—she recounts the day when she first realized she wanted to be a heart surgeon: when I wrapped my hand around that heart that was it for me. Love at first sight. Love at first touch. I knew this was exactly what I wanted. To touch the human heart everyday. In her memoir, HEALING HEARTS: A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon (Broadway Books; on sale: January 26, 2010; hardcover; .00), Kathy gives us a rare glimpse into the realities of being a cardiothoracic surgeon. Readers will be instantly pulled into her fast-paced world—struggling to fit in as a female in the biggest boys club of them all, learning operating room etiquette (eg, the lead surgeon always stands on the patients right side), and skillfully juggling a full family life as the wife of a liver transplant surgeon (they have bedside tables cluttered with pagers and cell phones that ring throughout the night) and the mother of two young boys. Dr. Magliato sheds light on a medical epidemic, cardiovascular disease, which is the number one killer of women in America: 41000000 women are currently living with the disease; even more startling, one in every 2.4 women will die from cardiovascular illness. With these staggering ...