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Lessons Learned
That Will Never Do! is a memoir of medical innovation and personal growth, chronicling your journey in urology and pioneering efforts to develop less invasive surgical techniques that transformed patient care. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Coming to the end of a truly fortunate career, I wanted to pass along some of the many things I had learned in hopes that it might be of help to those to follow. Some lessons learned the hard way, which, when explained to others, might save them a similar lengthy/painful learning curve. Then again, I also wanted to acknowledge those who made all the difference in my life and provided me with the privilege to proceed and succeed. Clearly Carol, but also a host of mentors and colleagues who never failed to encourage and support.
How did your mother’s optimism influence your approach to challenges?
There is nothing better in this world than optimism, in my opinion. There is a silver lining somewhere to almost all events, save the loss of a loved one. Roz’s optimism was something special though – regardless of what you wanted to do or your particular aspiration, she had the ability to convince you they would be realized, not maybe, but absolutely. I have yet to meet anyone in my life who had that ability and belief in an individual to realize their dreams. Armed with that kind of support, you understood, in Churchill’s words, that failure is not final and that indeed, there would be another day, and success would be on its horizon.
You openly discuss shortcomings in the preparation for early innovations. What did those experiences teach you?
This is where it is so important to bring in a collaborative group, so you don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Certainly, with the laparoscopic nephrectomy, we needed someone to step out of the enthusiasm and view it at a distance. I think if one person had just said, perhaps you ought to first try this in a cadaver, it would have changed a lot; we would have learned how to perhaps deal with the colon such that our first case, instead of being over 6 hours, may have only been 3 hours. But I think we were so blinded by the success with the porcine kidney, we did not take time to step back and think about how much more complex the anatomy and surrounding tissues of the human kidney might be.
How would you like your legacy as a physician, innovator, and mentor to be remembered?
The people who have done the endourology fellowship are truly my legacy – as they are physicians, innovators, and mentors in their own right. I am so thankful that the vast majority of the fellows have proceeded into an academic setting where they could become both innovators and mentors. Through them, the 5 H’s of honesty, hard work, humility, humor, and heart are passed on to the next generation of surgeons, much to the benefit of the people they treat and to the progress of the specialty.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Clayman traces the roots of that drive to a childhood shaped by discipline, persistence, and the difficult pursuit of parental approval, then follows it through a career at the forefront of modern urology, recounting the people, setbacks, discoveries, and unlikely ideas behind some of the field’s most important advances. Along the way, he reflects on the values that sustained him: hard work, honesty, humility, humor, and heart.
Part memoir, part chronicle of surgical innovation, That Will Never Do! is an engaging account of how character, curiosity, and collaboration can lead to discovery and reshaped the practice of surgery.
That Will Never Do!
Ralph V. Clayman’s That Will Never Do! is a memoir of medical innovation, academic leadership, and personal formation. Clayman traces his path from a New Jersey childhood shaped by a demanding father and an irrepressibly optimistic mother to a distinguished career in urology. At its center is a compelling question: “How could we achieve a surgical cure without the attendant morbidity of the big incision?” That question gives the book its intellectual and moral direction as Clayman recounts his role in advancing endourology, laparoscopic nephrectomy, flexible cystoscopy, and other techniques that reduced the physical burden of surgery.
The book’s structure expands from chronological autobiography into a detailed account of surgical practice and, finally, a series of case studies in creativity. Clayman explains how innovations emerge through collaboration among physicians, engineers, trainees, and industry partners. His descriptions of the first laparoscopic nephrectomy are especially absorbing because he records both the ingenuity behind the procedure and the shortcomings in its preparation. Throughout the memoir, he treats failure as evidence to study. This candor lends credibility to his reflections on persistence, mentorship, and the practical work required to move an idea from the laboratory into clinical care.
Clayman writes with technical precision, self-deprecating humor, and an evident concern for the person undergoing treatment. The extensive explanations of anatomy, instruments, and procedural history make the book particularly valuable to surgeons, medical trainees, and readers interested in health-care innovation. These passages can be dense, and the repeated summaries of his innovation framework occasionally slow the narrative, but they also preserve a detailed record of how a specialty changed over half a century. The photographs, diagrams, surgical maxims, and portraits of influential colleagues reinforce the memoir’s central conviction that discovery is collective. As Clayman tells his operating-room teams, “No one of us is as smart as all of us.”
The memoir presents surgical progress as an ethical commitment to achieving a cure with the least possible harm. Its personal and professional strands converge in Clayman’s five guiding values: hard work, honesty, humility, humor, and heart. His accounts of Carol’s sacrifices, his mentors’ interventions, his colleagues’ ingenuity, and his trainees’ accomplishments keep the story grounded in relationships. The result is a substantive and engaging record of modern urology’s transformation, as well as a thoughtful argument for compassionate competence, intellectual curiosity, and generous mentorship.
Pages: 208 | ASIN : B0HJ4T28WW
