First job of the day was a quick check of the wards to look for any of my patients with the O sign: unconscious with an open mouth. Or worse, the Q sign: same as the O sign, but with the tongue hanging out to one side and no pulse …

What does it take to cut into living flesh, get drenched in warm blood, and operate with only a 50/50 chance of success?

To know one wrong move might kill a patient.

Tell parents their child is dead.

And do surgeons cry when it all goes wrong, have sleepless nights, feel any guilt? After more than thirty years in the profession, and twenty-five as a consultant, Kevin Lafferty tells it all.

Cutting It is a brutally authentic account of a life in surgery. Heart-warming, hugely informative, tragic, funny, and shatteringly sad in equal measure, it’s an unforgettable read.

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A candid and insightful book, warts and all. As a fellow surgeon, ‘Cutting It’ had me in stitches at times. - Lord Ribeiro

A triumph. Not a word is wasted, not a page fails to entertain and enlighten… easily one of the great books on surgery. - Alex Wade