Book Review: “Nobility in Small Things” by Dr. Craig R. Smith
The Noble Narrative?
Dr. Craig R. Smith may not be a household name, but among the American medical community, he’s quite famous. In 2004, he performed successful quadruple bypass heart surgery on former U.S. President Bill Clinton and attended to complications from that surgery the following year. This book goes into some detail about that operation, eschewing doctor-patient privilege. However, this book was not quite the book I was expecting. I was expecting a book about the 50-odd updates that the doctor provided his staff at a New York City hospital during the COVID-19 outbreak that were motivational and powerful. While that’s dealt with in this book, it’s more of a straightforward memoir that philosophizes a little bit rather than being a work of inspirational non-fiction. So, without trying to upset the publicist on this one who gave me this read, the book jacket copy may not align with the contents of the book. All in all, the first third of it isn’t about being a surgeon at all! Rather, it focuses on the blue-collar jobs that Smith took on as a student in a coal factory and as a telephone lineman. So, if you’re looking for an autobiography from a common person in many respects, Nobility in Small Things will more than fit the bill.
Overall, I found the book to be mediocre. I say that not to be churlish, but I found things to admire in it and things to frown upon with it. I’ll start with the good first. Dr. Smith is an intelligent man. A very intelligent one. I break out this compliment on books that are a little above my pay grade to signal that I didn’t fully understand its contents — but some of that might be cultural. Dr. Smith is writing from an American perspective that doesn’t quite have the socialized health care that Canadians like me are accustomed to. Thus, he’s writing from a perspective that’s unique from mine — but that doesn’t make for a bad book. He’s had a long career that has allowed him the leeway to look at the healthcare system in the United States from a particular lens, and American readers who want to glean something from that will find much to enjoy and mull over here. I also found the story about the operation on Clinton to be interesting, which again isn’t an attempt to be charitable but an honest expression of admiration. I found sections of this work to be very humanistic and relatable, especially when Dr. Smith talks about losing his third daughter to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS. There’s plenty to involve and interest readers who want a human story about a man who has saved other lives.
However, the work can be antiseptic and clinical at times, which is probably a given since Dr. Smith is, well, a doctor. I did find myself skimming through various parts of the work that were of less interest to me, such as trialing a new form of heart surgery using lasers, which get very technical in the telling. Dr. Smith isn’t shy about using medical jargon and words that many readers may be unfamiliar with, which may limit this book’s appeal to the commoner. I also found that even the bits going through Dr. Smith’s work background before enrolling in medical school to be a bit dry and slow-going, especially as the good doctor assumes once again that the reader knows what it’s like to shovel coal into ovens and climb to the tops of telephone poles. And something that may charm or annoy certain readers is that Dr. Smith isn’t afraid of voicing his opinion on certain medical matters. Again, this might be something more of interest to an American reader as Dr. Smith waxes on about the need for hospitals to make money but at the disadvantage of providing limited service to those who are not so well off. Being Canadian, this is hard to relate to.
Still, I would strongly encourage anyone with an interest in the subject matter (heart surgery or heart transplantation) to give this book close attention. It may fascinate those who want to hear how a semi-famous surgeon goes about his workday and the things that are of interest to him. While I was disappointed that this book wasn’t quite the piece of inspirational non-fiction I was expecting, I found that once the medical aspect of the read kicked in, it generally got better and proved that the author’s passion for his subject matter was generally, well, contagious and sometimes leaped off the page. I also was enamored with the doctor’s candor: he relates more than a few instances where he failed to save a life and drily notes that he has been the subject of a series of malpractice suits (though he doesn’t go into any detail about their outcomes). All in all, Nobility in Small Things may become the “must-have” read on the shelves of future medical students and residents. Dr. Smith tells it like it is and lays his, pun intended, heart on the line with the revealing aspects of this book, which more often than not aims for the head. I didn’t find it to be perfect — though, not to sound like a broken record here, that may have been the result of differing expectations over the book’s content — but it shows that Dr. Smith is a double threat when it comes to being a surgeon and a writer. Having said that, and I hope this doesn’t sound like a criticism (because it’s not meant to be one at all!), I hope he doesn’t give up his day job. After all, some lives still need to be saved, and perhaps no more so than ever in this era of pandemic, even as it ebbs. To that end, this is a document of such tumultuous times and needs to be read by those who have an interest in science and medicine, who will probably be the audience that will get the most out of this one.
Dr. Craig R. Smith’s Nobility in Small Things: A Surgeon’s Path will be published by St. Martin’s Press on October 10, 2023.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
