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Date: 4/13/2023
LONGMEADOW — On April 18, retina surgeon/author Andrew Lam will release his latest book, “The Masters of Medicine: Our Greatest Triumphs in the Race to Cure Humanity’s Deadliest Diseases” and will be giving a talk on themes from the book in the local towns.
This book entails all the mavericks, special moments and mistakes that led to modern medicine’s greatest breakthroughs. In an interview with Reminder Publishing, Lam said, “I wanted to write a book with all of the best stories from medical history that would fascinate and inspire readers.”
Lam is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He practices with New England Retina Consultants in Springfield and is an attending surgeon at Baystate Medical Center. Before becoming a physician, Lam earned a history degree from Yale. He is the author of “Saving Sight,” an Amazon bestseller about his career as a retina surgeon, “Two Sons of China,” a novel about World War II in China that was a Foreword Reviews Book of the Year in 2014, and “Repentance,” a novel of Japanese Americans in World War II that was a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award. His writing has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times and the Washington Post.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Lam was still working as a doctor and afraid he might bring coronavirus to his family, so he semi-quarantined by staying in another bedroom. He found himself with a lot of time and began to read books about medical history. He was enthralled by the development of cardiac catheterization, one of the greatest medical advances of the 20th century. The intern who did it first went against hospital orders and risked his own life when he threaded a catheter into his own heart.
Then Lam read another story about a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic who performed the first coronary angiogram accidentally. “This later led to our ability to treat heart attacks with balloon angioplasty and stents,” Lam said. “These were incredible stories. I wanted to put them together in a book that would appeal to everyone, so I organized it with each chapter covering one of the deadliest diseases in history: heart disease, diabetes, infection, cancer, trauma and childbirth.”
Lam was able to benefit from both historical and scientific literature. As a doctor, Lam told Reminder Publishing it was fun to study original articles from the 19th century, such as ones by Joseph Lister, a pioneer of antiseptic surgery and preventative medicine or Louis Pasteur, renowned for his discoveries of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization. Lam hopes this book will inspire young people in the next generation to devote their lives and careers to discovery. His goal as a writer is to share the history that he loves with others because these incredible stories are a testament to the human spirit.
“The book’s value is that it distills all of medical history down to the most exciting and important moments which led to breakthroughs that still benefit us all,” Lam replied. “Medical history does not proceed in a steady, linear fashion. It moves forward in fits and starts. There were key moments of epiphany, luck, and sometimes mistakes, that resulted in discoveries that changed everything.”
“The Masters of Medicine: Our Greatest Triumphs in the Race to Cure Humanity’s Deadliest Diseases” will be available wherever books are sold, including bookstores and every online vendor. To learn more information, visit www.AndrewLamMD.com.
Upcoming readings include: