Book excerpt: A hospital operating room may not be as safe as you think it is. Hiding among the sterile scrubs and gleaming instruments of an operating room is a whole lot of high drama: split-second life-and-death decisions.deep questions of ethics.roaring personality conflicts.the glory of saving a life-and the horror when a simple procedure goes terribly wrong.Renowned surgeon Pierce Scranton, Jr., kept a detailed diary of his internship year at a busy California teaching hospital. This book is a vivid, fictionalized memoir of that year in the trenches. Through the intertwined stories of teachers, students and patients, it explores issues like: What happens when teaching and healing come into conflict? When is a new treatment to prolong life a good idea, and when is it a disaster? How did lawyers and bean-counters get so much power? And when do relationships between doctors and other staff go too far? This honest account is startling and sometimes shocking-but always gripping.