The Angina Monologues: Stories of Surgery for Broken Hearts

By Samer Nashef

‘Enthralling and outspoken.’

– Andrew Billen, The Times

A pioneering cardiac surgeon expertly sews up the heart of surgery, the health of the nation, and the NHS.

The Angina Monologues speeds from the transporting of a donor’s heart up the motorway hard shoulder, to cautionary stories of excessive intervention gone awry in US hospitals, to a traumatic trip to bring advanced cardiac surgery to the Palestinian West Bank. Nashef tells heart-stopping stories of transplants, coronary artery bypasses, aorta repair and cardiac arrest. He also delivers humane advice about medical realities rarely observed: the futility of obsessing over diet, the necessity of calculating risks, the role of decision making, the resilience of doctor and patient alike and the threadbare brilliance of the NHS. 

Nashef is a magnificently warm and likeable doctor and writer; and he has the best imaginable bedside manner.