"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, author of Confessions of a Surgeon: The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated . . . Life Beyond the O.R. Doors

"There are many memoirs written by doctors--this is certainly one of the most notable."

--Henry Marsh, MD, author of Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery

"A touchingly human book, Saving Grace invites us to follow Dr. David Alfery as he grows from naive medical student to caring senior physician and anesthesiologist. . . . As he becomes increasingly aware that all lives do end, he becomes increasingly committed to making each day matter. If that sounds clichéd, it isn't as presented in the gentle prose and striking storytelling that enliven this profoundly affecting book."

--Theresa Brown, RN, author of Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient

"Dr. Alfery's highly readable casebook and memorable clinical memoir amounts to The Anesthesiologist's Tale . . . 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! Also an illumination of how a caring clinician not just thinks of death and dying, but acts to keep patients alive or to help them find an adequate passing."

--Arthur Kleinman, MD, author of The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and Doctor

"Bring[s] readers behind the curtain of mystery where so much of the enormous complexity of modern medicine is concealed...Compulsively readable and consistently revelatory. It is the behind-the-scenes information on modern medicine and the place of anesthesiology within it that makes Saving Grace such an impressive achievement."

--Infodad blog

"If you're looking for a self-aggrandizing memoir of a doctor who changed the world or a collection of harrowing experiences in the operating room describing that "10% terror" we all know too well, look elsewhere--although there certainly are harrowing stories here that are both moving and well told.... in elegant and vivid language that does not require a medical education to understand, yet in sufficient technical detail that any practicing anesthesiologist will have no trouble finding themselves in them. A highly recommended read for teachers, students, patients, and physicians alike."

--Book Review in ANESTHESIOLOGY, the official Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists