DANGER AND DISCOVERY FROM POLE TO POLE
Purchase BookDr. Adventure is the gripping, intimate memoir of Dr. Warren Zapol, a globe-trotting adventurer whose discoveries and drive helped shape a half-century of science and medicine. Zapol’s memoir traces an obsession with adventure, from youthful misadventures in Jewish Brooklyn in the 1940s to decades of travel from pole to pole, from the Arctic to Antarctica. Charting his rise to a daring Harvard physician and scientist, mentor to astronauts and medical innovators, and advisor to Presidents Obama and Bush, Dr. Adventure charms with restless intellect, a quirky sense of humor, and outsized personality. In the spirit of Richard Feynman’s “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” it is a glorious ride.
Zapol illustrates how inspiration strikes through his numerous discoveries, including those dealing with “blue babies” — newborns whose lungs were not functioning properly at birth — and how this revolutionized medicine, treated millions, and created billion dollar businesses. And yet, in his late thirties, his own life had a shocking discovery waiting for him, which he describes in heartbreaking detail. Travel along with Dr. Adventure, a beautiful book of both body and mind, of heart-pounding exploration and inspiring reflection.
“Dr. Warren Zapol was the quintessential physician-scientist, whose brilliant mind could grasp everything from the mechanisms of nitric oxide, which lasts seconds, to the evolution of mammals over the span of 200 million years. Working from bench to bedside to far beyond, he was as comfortable in the wilds of Antarctica as he was in the hallowed halls of Harvard. His memoir is a gift that will help new generations appreciate how remarkable he truly was and will preserve the legacy of insight and inspiration felt by those who were fortunate enough to know him personally.”
George A. Mashour, MD, PhD
University of Michigan Medical School
Dr. Adventure captures the joy of medicine and the thrill of scientific discovery. I was reminded of one of my favorite (and life changing) books: "Surely Your Joking, Mr. Feynman." Like "Surely Your Joking", Dr. Adventure is a first-person account of a life driven by endless curiosity and abundant gray matter. Perhaps unlike Feynman, Dr. Adventure also was a man of extraordinary kindness and generosity.
The breadth of the Dr. Zapol's story is astounding: battling malaria, good-will ambassador to Russia, Antarctic explorations of mammalian marine biology. It is a story of the insight, courage, and resilience needed to bring nitric oxide to blue babies, preventing lifetime injury from hypoxic brain damage. That would have been enough for most. However, Dr. Warren Zapol balanced his science and adventures with his everyday job of caring for patients and (presumably in his spare time) running one of world's premier Departments of Anesthesiology.
One can't help but be grateful that people like Dr. Zapol spend a lifetime directing their energy, brilliance, and joy of life into profound contributions to medicine, science, and humanity.
Steven L. Shafer, MD
Professor Emeritus, Stanford University
Warren M. Zapol, MD was Anesthetist-in-Chief at Massachusetts General Hospital, founder of the MGH Anesthesia Center for Critical Care Research, Reginald Jenney Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, and a faculty member of Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology.
An exceptional scientist, mentor, doctor and engineer, Dr. Zapol is noted for inventing inhaled nitric oxide, which has been used to treat over a million patients, saving thousands of “blue babies” from death each year. Recently, inhaled NO was shown to be an effective treatment for COVID-19 in pregnant mothers.
Dr. Zapol’s research and medical missions spanned the globe. He led nine Antarctic expeditions to study how Weddell seals hold their breath and avoid the bends. In 2008, he was appointed by President George W. Bush and reappointed in 2012 by President Barack Obama as an academic representative to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. He also served on the Polar Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, and as a scientific advisor to NASA. He was a member of the National Academy of Medicine and in 2003 was awarded the Inventor of the Year Award of the Intellectual Property Owners Association. Dr Zapol was called on to treat critically ill patients around the globe including the president-elect of Brazil and a queen of Saudi Arabia. He ran clinical trials all over the world, most extensively in China and Uganda.
The Zapol Glacier, named after him, flows from the largest mountain in Antarctica.
