A NEW ‘WORK OF HUMAN HANDS’
Timeless
medical classic updated to 2012, with all-new chapters and photos
October 3,
2012
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
BOSTON –– Crossroad Press is pleased to announce
release of the new edition of the critically acclaimed book THE WORK OF HUMAN HANDS, by G. Wayne
Miller, a timeless medical journey through pioneering surgeon Dr. Hardy
Hendren’s legendary operating room that the Los
Angeles Times called “impossible to forget.”
Set at Boston Children’s Hospital, which U.S. News & World Report consistently
rates as America’s best children’s hospital, THE WORK OF HUMAN HANDS is available now for the first time in
digital format. An audio book and a new paperback edition will also be
available soon. These 2012 editions include a new introduction and a greatly
expanded epilogue updating readers on Hendren and patient Lucy Moore today.
The central narrative remains an epic story of
struggle against seemingly impossible odds as Hendren faces one of his biggest
challenges: Lucy Moore, a fourteen-month-old girl born with life-threatening
defects of the heart, central nervous system and genitourinary system. Before
Hendren, surgeons regarded Lucy's condition as fatal.
But at the hands of master surgeon Hendren, she
will go on to lead a normal life. And Hendren is aided in that quest by Aldo R.
Castaneda, the pioneering cardiac surgeon, and R. Michael Scott, the
internationally renowned neurosurgeon. Hendren, Castaneda and Scott are all
affiliated with the Harvard Medical School.
The Work of
Human Hands is also the story of a revered hospital, its lore, its people
and their remarkable accomplishments – an example of the best of health care in
America. Poignant and dramatic, lively and engrossing, with breathtaking
insight into the craft of surgery, The Work of Human Hands is medical
and literary journalism at its best.
“At a time when TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and ER win
huge followings for their stories, The Work of Human Hands stands out as a
real-life medical drama with a cast of uniquely colorful characters,” said
Crossroad publisher David N. Wilson. “We are thrilled to publish these new
editions of the classic Work of Human
Hands.”
Said author G. Wayne Miller: “With health care
dominating the public discourse today -- and rightly so -- it’s refreshing to
rejoice in the triumphs. American medicine truly can perform miracles.”
Today, Lucy Moore, the 14-month-old baby who spent
nearly 24 hours on Hendren’s operating table is a college graduate, fully
healed and living a normal life.
Hendren performed his last surgery in 2004, when he
was 78 years old, but he continues to work full-time on his non-profit W. Hardy
Hendren Education Foundation for Pediatric Surgery and Urology. He still
receives some of the world’s most prestigious medical honors, most recently the
Jacobson Innovation Award of the American College of Surgeons, in June 2012.
The publisher and author are donating a portion of
the proceeds from this edition of The
Work of Human Hands to the Hendren Foundation.
The digital edition of the book is available online
at
Kindle/Amazon, at the Crossroad Press
Digital store, on Barnes
&Noble.com's Nook, iTunes, Sony, Kobo and at Overdrive.com and EBSCO
for libraries. Audio and paperback versions of the new edition will be
available online and in bookstores later this year.
Praise
for The Work of Human Hands:
“A song of suffering and redemption
that is harrowing to read and impossible to forget... Only rarely does a work
of nonfiction equal or surpass the novel in the art of story-telling, the play
of emotion and the sheer grandeur of human spirit... To this short list, I must
add The Work of Human Hands.”
–– Los Angeles Times
“Mr. Miller reminds us that in the
hands of visionary and dedicated doctors, miracles still happen.”
––
New York Times Book Review
“At a time when so many books are
telling us what is wrong with American medicine, it’s nice to see one that
tells us what’s good about those who provide our care.”
–– Library Journal
“The sheer drama of it all is
gripping throughout.”
–– Vermont Sunday Magazine
G.
Wayne Miller is a staff writer at The Providence Journal, a documentary
filmmaker, and the author of three novels, three short story collections and seven
books of non-fiction, including THE XENO
CHRONICLES: Two Years on the Frontier of
Medicine Inside Harvard’s Transplant Research Lab and KING OF HEARTS: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery, which
is in Hollywood development. He has been honored for his writing more than 40
times and was a member of the Providence Journal team that was a finalist for
the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. Three documentaries he wrote and
co-produced have been broadcast on PBS, including The Providence Journal’s COMING HOME, about veterans of the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, nominated in 2012 for a New England Emmy and winner of
a regional Edward R. Murrow Award. Miller is Visiting Fellow at Salve Regina
University’s Pell Center, in Newport, R.I. Visit him at www.gwaynemiller.com
For more information and author interviews, please contact
David Niall Wilson, publisher@crossroadpress.com
or tel. 252-340-3952. Visit www.crossroadpress.com
For interviews with Dr. Hendren, please send an email to eaglepeakmedia@yahoo.com
Crossroad Press / 141 Brayden Dr. / Hertford, NC 27944
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