THE MAKING OF A SURGEON by William A. Nolen, M.D. 269 pages. Random House. $6.95.
Even the cockiest intern can lose his nerve the first time he cuts open a live human being. "It went horribly," admits Dr. William Nolen, recalling his own baptism, a routine appendectomy, at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital 17 years ago. "My knot-tying proficiency had melted away. My fingers, greasy with fat, simply would not perform. My ties slipped off the vessels, the sutures snapped in my fingers; at one point I even managed to tie the end of my rubber glove into the wound."
Fortunately, both doctor and patient...
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