Enter the Operating Room with Cardiac Surgeon Dr. Thomas Jay Berger by Anna Daugherty What is it like to stop a heart and duel with death in his own backyard with a human life at stake? Until now, only a cardiac surgeon could know. And only a surgeon like Dr. Thomas Jay Berger can take the reader not only into the operating room, but into the heart itself. Berger became a certified surgeon in 1981 and went on to become one of the most recognized cardiac surgeons in the nation. When his vision began to fail him, Berger began working on medical malpractice cases. His experiences have inspired his breakout novel, Dueling in Death’s Backyard. Dueling in Death’s Backyard follows Cooper Logan, a troubled youth in Boston, as he follows a wrestling scholarship to a surgical residency in Birmingham, Alabama, where he fit in like a Hell’s Angel at a British High Tea. He was more Clint Eastwood, as Rowdy Yates, than Richard Chamberlain, as Dr. Kildare, and everyone kept telling him he didn’t look like a doctor. Cooper was obsessed with becoming a cardiac surgeon -- stopping hearts and pitting his scalpel against Old Grim’s scythe right there in Death’s backyard. Most doctors spend their lives avoiding such situations. Only Cooper, and other cardiac surgeons, live to fight on that mystic battlefield for the life of every patient.
Culture shock and hospital politics threaten Cooper’s chances for success, but with Holt’s help he is on track to complete his residency. Then, conflict with a drug addicted nurse and her powerful protector get Cooper fired. His lover dumps him and it seems that things couldn’t get much worse. Then they do. The druggy nurse is murdered and Cooper is framed for the crime. Dr. McDuff seems to want to help but has his own secret agenda. To save his dream and his life, Cooper must unravel a mystery decades older than he is, and solve a murder in the process. Dueling in Death’s Backyard is available on Amazon in paperback for $15.95 or on Kindle for $5.95. This new and genuine look inside the secrets of the operating room is one readers can’t miss. Find out more about the book on Facebook.