Heart To Beat: A Cardiac Surgeon’s Inspiring Story of Success and Overcoming Adversity–The Heart Way

LOCAL AUTHOR

Heart to Beat is a book that can be labeled as part autobiography and part self-help. Written by Dr. Brian Lima, a renowned cardiac surgeon in Dallas Texas, this book is filled with life lessons, stories, and anecdotes. Dr. Lima’s light-hearted humor is much welcomed in this book, and there were several times I chuckled. There were also several times I forgot that this was a cardiac surgeon speaking. “Let’s take a selfie”?

The reason I chose this book to read and review is that I love anything medical-related. Actually, I love anything that has to do with anatomy and how the human body works. And as I read this book, I could tell that Dr. Lima is my kind of people. I completely nerded out when he was talking about medical school, the professors he admired so much because of their extensive work in the industry, and of course, the different medical procedures and equipment he uses on a daily basis. Surgeons like Dr. Lima are saving lives every day, however, as he points out, the phrase is “it’s not brain surgery” and not “it’s not heart surgery” which isn’t exactly fair, don’t you think? The truth is, both the brain AND the heart are areas that require extensive research and development and new methods, safer methods, are being sought out every day to improve the length and quality of people’s lives.

Heart to Beat is broken down into three sections containing chapters with distinct lessons. Dr. Lima seems to love puns, especially those that come “from the heart”. His chapter on “Gravitas” was especially motivating. His personal story about when and how he experienced what gravitas really was in medical school really hit home. The quote he included from Sylvia Ann Hewlett was also such a beautiful way to describe the meaning of the word, ”There are six elements of gravitas critical to leadership: grace under fire, decisiveness, emotional intelligence and the ability to read a room, integrity and authenticity (people don’t like fakes), a vision that inspires others, and a stellar reputation.”

I would have liked for the book to have been a bit more organized. There are several parts in the book where it seems like Dr. Lima rambles on into another subject and then has to redirect back to the original topic. This made parts of the book difficult to follow. Perhaps, each chapter could start with the personal story and then go into the learning topic of the chapter. The reason for this is that Dr. Lima’s personal, and sometimes funny, stories were what grabbed me first, and if the chapters started with those then the reader would understand the lesson with an example first.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Heart to Beat and would recommend it to people who are looking for a pep-talky, medical-infused book with some humor thrown in.