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by Katrina Firlik, 271 pp, $24.95, ISBN 1-4000-6320-5, New York, NY, Random House, 2006.

JAMA. 2007;297:317-318.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Another Day in the Frontal Lobe is a smart and fast-moving account of a young neurosurgeon's training and early practice years. Dr Firlik, who is in private practice and is a clinical assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine, relates wondrous truths of the neurosurgical profession with accuracy and insight. Through authentic vignettes familiar to every neurosurgeon, she presents the enigmatic range and depth of the specialty, in the process creating compelling portraits of doctors and their patients.

The author is a talented writer with an elegant yet straightforward prose style. An observation on neurosurgical training is a case in point: "At the end of the tunnel, the formerly undifferentiated M.D. emerges as an exquisitely superspecialized neurosurgeon, squinting at the rest of the world. . . . "

Most of the chapters are thoughtfully and beautifully constructed, for instance, chapter 2, "Small World" (there are only about 3500 neurosurgeons in the United States). . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Edie E. Zusman, MD, Reviewer
Sutter Neuroscience Institute
National Science Foundation Center for Biophotonics, Science and Technology
University of California, Davis School of Medicine
Sacramento
zusmane@sutterhealth.org