The Puzzle People

Transplant surgeon Thomas E. Starzl tells his life story, from a boyhood in LeMars, Iowa, where his father published a newspaper and his mother was a nurse, to a career that drew admiration and controversy worldwide. He earned an M.D. and a Ph.D. at Northwestern University Medical School and began a series of animal experiments, first as a student and later as a Johns Hopkins surgical intern, that eventually led to the world's first human liver transplant in 1963. Starzl also gives his views on brain death, randomized trials of experimental drugs, the cost of transplant operations and how organ recipients are chosen. The title refers to patients who, a journalist suggested, might someday be built wholly from transplanted parts.

Peter Attia counts it among the important reads for people drawn to a career like his, according to Peter Attia: In Search of Still Water.