Everything That Makes Us Human

'There are two ways to open a child's head. The pretty way and the quick way. Usually I shave the hair, use a scalpel to nick the skin then apply an electro-cautery device to burn down to bone level.

It's a slow, precise method and it leaves almost no scarring. But it takes time. Time, the interminable single note of the heart monitor reminds me, I don't have.' ___________ Jay Jayamohan makes life and death decisions on a daily basis.

That's because he's a Consultant Paediatric Neurosurgeon in a busy Oxford hospital. Every day, parents put all their faith in him to make their sick children well again. Though he is proud of his successes, he is haunted by every failure.

Jayamohan is known not only for his skill in surgery but also his human touch: to him, no patient is only a number. In this gripping and sometimes heartrending book, Jayamohan - who has featured in two highly acclaimed BBC fly-on-the-wall series following the work of neurosurgeons - brings the highs and lows of the operating theatre into