That Will Never Do! by Ralph Clayman

A Life Lived in Surgical Discovery and the Healing Arts

A single criticism in the operating room—“That will never do!”—helped set Ralph V. Clayman on a lifelong course of questioning surgical convention.

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.