It’s been a minute since a book impressed an expansive feeling of gratitude in me. (I love books, and I am of course grateful for their general existence – but this is a more acute, unmissable kind of feeling towards a book that I read at the perfect time.)
Jay Wellons, a paediatric neurosurgeon, shares anecdotes of his patients, and the trajectory of his career. As in most memoirs of this kind, the stories about patients and surgeries are fascinating. When I struggle to study, I read books with medical themes, and All That Moves Us strikes a perfect balance between telling a story accessibly to laypersons, but cerebral enough to maintain the attention of a medical audience. I practically studied the whole neurosurgery chapter by reading this! (Joking, but also not joking.)
I am an anaesthetist, and I chuckled at Wellons’ description of neurosurgeons:
“You are nothing like them,” they said. “Neurosurgeons are tired and grumpy. Egotistical. They work too much. The patients do terrible. Everyone dies.”
All That Moves Us, Jay Wellons
It does sound like what our community says about neurosurgeons (if a neurosurgeon is reading this, come at me – you know that’s how y’all present, even if if you are a puppy-dog on the inside).
Wellons then proceeds to challenge that archetype – without abandoning his colleagues or himself, and in fact, making their eccentricities almost endearing.
The author’s career progression, illustrated subtly amongst clinical vignettes, feels like mentorship in book form. Having felt stuck and lonely in my career (a topic for another day), the way that Wellons sometimes followed traditional routes, and at others adapted to changing technologies, is probably what brought about that gratitude I mentioned. I can still create my own path, my own career trajectory. I can still take control. With an appreciation of literature leading to him majoring in English, and a keen introspective mind, Wellons is the kind of clinician I wish to emulate.
Of course, a mentor cannot simply be accomplished: Wellons also shows himself to be humble, empathic, and teachable. He is aware of his privilege, and sensitive to (for example) the persistent challenges faced by women and persons of colour in medicine.
The importance of mentorship in medicine is a recurrent theme. I especially enjoy Wellons’ “bucket line” imagery:
[…]there is a long list of people […] spanning back to my childhood who have handed me from one to the next, bucket line-like, to the present.
All That Moves Us, Jay Wellons
I do think that All That Moves Us deserves more attention, and I don’t know if the proximity to COVID affected the attention at the time of publishing. I don’t often include direct links to purchase a book that I am reviewing, but I would so love for this one to reach more people – especially because I think it is SO helpful to students and doctors at all stages in their careers. All That Moves Us is available for Kindle, in audio, and in hardcopy, and you can find it here.
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.
MAC Awake 