Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life

Katherine E. Standefer's memoir explores the complexities of the medical device supply chain, tracing the materials of a lifesaving cardiac defibrillator from mines in the Congo to a manufacturer in California. She raises questions about the social and environmental costs of technology and our cultural relationship to medical technology.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 02 June 2022
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

In her captivating memoir, "Lightning Flowers," Katherine E. Standefer delves into the profound and unsettling question of what happens when a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain. After experiencing a sudden shock from her implanted cardiac defibrillator, Standefer finds herself grappling with the ethical implications of a technology that is meant to save lives but inadvertently contributes to harm.

Through her personal journey, Standefer recounts the rare diagnosis that upended her rugged life in the mountains of Wyoming and led her into a complex maze of cardiology units, surgeries, and slow recoveries. As her life becomes increasingly centered around the internal defibrillator, she becomes consumed with questions about the supply chain that enables such a seemingly miraculous device to exist. Determined to trace the materials back to their origins, Standefer embarks on a global quest that takes her from the sterile labs of a medical device manufacturer in southern California to the tantalum and tin mines seized by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Along the way, "Lightning Flowers" takes a hard look at the social and environmental costs of a technology that promises to be lifesaving but is, in reality, much more complicated. The book explores the intricate web of relationships between healthcare, technological advancements, and our cultural relationship to medical technology, raising important questions about our obligations to one another and the cost of saving one life.

With her deeply personal and sharply reported storytelling, Standefer invites readers to confront the complexities of our medical system and the unintended consequences of our reliance on technology. "Lightning Flowers" is a thought-provoking and important book that sheds light on the hidden toll of our healthcare practices and the ethical dilemmas we face in the pursuit of life-saving treatments.

Weight: 260g
Dimension: 206 x 138 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780316450348