Have you ever wondered what really goes on in the Operating Rooms and ICUs of our nations tertiary hospitals?

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About Saving Grace

These are secret worlds known only to the doctors and nurses who work in them. For 36 years, Dr. David Alfery was a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist in Nashville, TN. In this inspiring medical memoir, Dr. Alfery brings you into a hidden world of operating room and ICU medicine as it has never before been seen. Dr. Alfery’s striking story telling enlivens this affecting humanistic book of doctor and patient stories. You will witness the exhilaration a physician feels when a life is miraculously saved, the terror when a life is on the line, the shock of an unexpected demise, the grace patients evidence at the end of life, and much more. SAVING GRACE illustrates the shared humanity of the bond between doctors and their patients. You will come to view your own doctor in a new light. It will bring into focus the fact that, sooner or later, each of us will die. More importantly, it will forever change the way you live.

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Praise for Saving Grace

  • “Saving Grace is transformational. Beautifully written, Dr. Alfery’s perspective on life, death, and beyond will change the way you live each day.”

    —Paul Ruggieri MD, NY Times best selling author of CONFESSIONS OF A SURGEON; The Good, The Bad, The complicated … Life Beyond the OR Doors. (Berkley, 2012)

  • “There are many memoirs written by doctors–this is certainly one of the most notable.”

    —Henry Marsh MD, author of the New York Times bestseller Do No Harm (Thomas Dunne Books, 2015) and the National Book Critics Circle finalist, Admissions (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017)

  • “A touchingly human book... as presented in the gentle prose and striking storytelling that enliven this profoundly affecting book.”

    —Theresa Brown RN, author of the New York Times bestseller The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives (Algonquin Books, 2016)

  • “Nothing will so clarify the thin pink line between life and the cold greyness of death and shake readers into sensible health maintenance as reading how anesthesiologists routinely struggle to balance physiology and control untoward responses to surgical interventions. A highly accessible clinical memoir!”

    —Arthur Kleinman MD, author of the New York Times bestseller The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Patient and a Doctor (Penguin Books, 2019)

A Message From the Author

Meet the Author

Dr. David Alfery was raised in the North but moved to Louisiana to attend Tulane University where he graduated with a BA degree in English. After graduating from LSU Medical School in New Orleans, he spent a year as a surgical intern at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and then did his residency in anesthesia at the University of California in San Diego.  He stayed on there for an additional year of fellowship training in cardiothoracic anesthesia.

In 1980 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he spent a thirty-six-year career in private practice.  He has served as a Chief of Anesthesia, President of the Tennessee State Society of Anesthesiologists, and was a founding member of Anesthesia Medical Group, one of the largest anesthesia practices in the United States.  For twenty years he served as an Oral Examiner for the American Board of Anesthesiology, ending his tenure as a Senior Examiner.  He holds an academic appointment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as Adjunct Associate Professor of Anesthesiology.  While in practice, he participated in numerous medical missions with Operation Smile.  

Dr. Alfery has authored ten chapters in medical textbooks and 41 peer reviewed articles in anesthesia medical journals.  He has invented several anesthesia devices that are sold worldwide and for which he has been awarded 17 US and International patents.  

He has been married to his medical school sweetheart, Joyce, for over forty-five years, and together they have produced three daughters and five (and counting) grandchildren.

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