I absolutely loved this book. It hooked me and kept me turning pages until I was done. Finished it in two days! The character development was strong, and the premise was unique enough that it didn't feel like anything else I've read.

“Doctor Ice Pick” is a quick glimpse into the dark world of mental health history. It introduces the infamous Dr. Walter Freeman and his “perfection” of the frontal lobotomy.

This book was both fascinating and horrifying. To think that one person can go on a merry spree to lobotomize so many people to make a point that it's safe and "helps" them is frightening. The book was fascinating in the sense that it lays out how this was done in a logical manner and that you could follow easily the way that it happened. Conditions in mental asylums were terrible, lack of staffing, lack of funding and the answer was lobotomies where people could then be sent home. Yikes! Great book!

A haunting true short story about Dr. Walter Freeman from the 1950s. In 1952, Dr Freeman arrived at a West Virginia asylum ready to demonstrate the future of lobotomies which was a quick and easy 10 minute procedure with two metal picks and a hammer. In 12 days, he had lobotomized 228 men, women and children in WV's public mental health hospitals. Determined it was the future of health care, he continued throughout his life to lobotomize patients, promoting it for all kinds of ailments.

This short story was truly horrifying to read, simply due to the nature it covered. The author presented how Dr Walter Freeman rose and fell in public favor throughout his lobotomy crusade in a quick 85 pages. I learnt about how he gained support from the state and was authorized to conduct lobotomies in WV to basically save money and reduce the burden on the mental health hospitals.

I do however feel this could be fleshed out into a 300ish page book that covered lobotomies in general in more detail, with Dr Freeman being the main vein. It could have included studies/information related to Dr James Watts who split from working with Dr Freeman due to his opposition to the cruelty and overuse of the transorbital lobotomy. It also would have been great to have more details and information on his son Paul, who became a psychiatrist, specifically his thoughts on lobotomy and what he went on to do in the mental health sphere.

Despite this, I felt for a short story it was great. Gave a succinct story telling of Dr Freeman and his famous "Ice Pick" lobotomy. A quick read and nice introduction to anybody who likes to learn about history, medical procedures etc without it being a full in depth overwhelming read. Would fit nicely in an anthology of gruesome medical procedures or harrowing doctors of the past.

I am quite a fan of medical history, and in particular anything to do with psychology or the brain. This short story (approximately 60-70 pages or 2.5 hours of audio) gives a brief overview of Dr Walter Freeman, who popularised lobotomy in the United States, and invented the transorbital lobotomy method. Touted as a cure for anything from depression to being a teenager, this non fiction story covers Freeman’s life and career as well as the rise and eventual fall of lobotomy as medication is discovered.

For a short story, this is well researched and packed with information. For anyone wishing to read more in depth, there’s a bibliography at the back. I felt this was a perfect introduction to lobotomy and Freeman, and I felt it covered the issues around lobotomy, the skewed studies and data collected by Freeman, and the effects it had on the patients and their families afterward.

I’d recommend this to anyone who’s wanting to know about lobotomy or mental health care in the early to mid 1900s.

It’s not clear exactly what this is – fiction or non-fiction. It’s billed as a short story but if indeed that is what it is, I would expect some fictional elements, perhaps an attempt at insight into Dr Freeman’s character, his thoughts and motivations, imagined meetings and so on. However, what we get is a non-fiction account of an already well-documented history of Freeman and the lobotomies he popularised. There is some invented dialogue, but not more than you would expect in creative non-fiction. I didn’t feel the author added anything to the known facts, and there didn’t seem to be anything new here that isn’t readily available for free online or in other publications. And because it’s such a scandalous and chilling tale, there is an enormous amount already available. This short account is readable and accessible and for those who are new to the subject, it’s a useful introduction. But short story? I don’t think so.

A haunting and true short story of the lobotomist who cut a brutal swathe through the lives of thousands of vulnerable Americans from the author of Miracle at Coney Island. Wow!!! Started this book and could not stop reading it until I'd finished!!

After the first few pages, I knew this was a book I wasn’t going to be able to put down. And, I was right! I read this straight through in one sitting. This story is simply SHOCKING! I was stunned that the medical profession allowed Freeman to run rampant for SO long, unchecked. What he did to these people is just heartbreaking unfathomable. I think the "good doctor" was the one who needed a lobotomy! You can't go wrong with this book!

#DoctorIcePick #NetGalley.

*I received a complimentary ARC of this book in order to read and provide a voluntary, unbiased and honest review, should I choose to do so.

I've read a lot around Dr Freeman's work and from his victims, including Howard Dully's memoir.
I find this was short but sweet and at times lacked citations for the points it made.

Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Orginal Stories for this non-fiction E-book.


This was a such a fast-paced read. I was interesting through out the whole book that I finished this in one sitting. A terrifying man, named Walter Freeman became a "pioneer of prefrontal and transorbital lobotomies". It's crazy to think back then that people we subjected to these terrifying life altering procedures in hope for a cure for different conditions.

A fascinating read on a horrifying subject. Thoroughly researched and compelling, this is a real insight into how so many people were subjected to a terrifying procedure, the impact it had on them and their families and the man that lead the campaign.

Shocking, harrowing and unfortunately factual. This book is an expose which goes beyond the acts of the lobotomist to highlight the power which the medical profession wields disproportionately over disempowered societal groups. Highlighting misogyny and racism as tools used by doctors to further their own ends, the author cleverly analyses the lobotomy phenomenon as a case study.

I have heard a bit about Walter Freeman and his lobotomy procedures through various podcasts. It is incredible to read about how such a barbaric procedure could have been considered in such recent times. The people were amongst the most vulnerable, and the doctor was maverick, and a showman in his approach. He cherry-picked the cases he presented to his colleagues, to ensure he was presenting his procedure in the best possible light. Poor outcomes were justified by him as being that the patient was bought to him too late for his procedure to help. If not for the development of drugs to effectively replace the transorbital lobotomy, how many more years and how many more patients, people, could have been subjected to this?

Well, they do say that fact is stranger than fiction and nothing better illustrates this dictum than this book.

It is a fascinating, if somewhat disturbing, tale skilfully told by the author. The key takeaway is perhaps that the medical profession is as prone to fashion, group think and a convincing sales pitch as any other walk of life. It’s well worth reading to gain that perspective.

I really enjoyed the book especially as it caused me to think about what we, as a society, are doing today that will provoke incredulity from future generations.

God this book was hard to read due to the subject matter but also couldn't stop reading. God I hope to never meet a doctor like this!

Wow, what a story! Walter Freeman, neurologist, showman and self styled medical visionary, persuades the state authorities in West Virginia to give him free rein of their mental institutions, lobotomizing long term patients in a bid to "send them home," Cheered on by an uncritical press, and largely unchallenged by medical and political authorities, he criss crosses the state, operating on men, women and children. When his operations fail he blames someone else, and brushes aside criticisms from those who have good reason to doubt the efficacy of his savage treament. This is a chilling little morality tale, tightly told and based on original research in West Virginia. I liked the way that the writer Clare Prentice gave names and dignity to the people Freeman operated on. Five Stars.

Dr. Walter Freeman literally is THE WORST- the most arrogant, stubborn, sexist and infuriating man.

Doctor Ice Pick is the disgusting and engrossing journey into the life of Dr. Walter Freeman as he beguiles, enchants and hammers his way into the brains of hundreds of men, women and children in the 1950s.

It's been a LONG time since I was thoroughly livid about a book, but reading Doctor Ice Pick had steam coming out of my ears. I'm absolutely fascinated by non-fiction centered around science and medicine, especially when it dives back into some of the archaic procedures used in the past.
I LOVED this and felt that even though it was non-fiction it was really fast-paced and it's the perfect length! Claire doesn't bog you down with too much technical detail and therefore the storyline flows nicely into soooo many WHAT THE HECKO moments you'll have to pick your jaw up from the floor.

I cannot wait to look into all the books and articles referenced within. As horrific as this TRUE short story as, it's fascinating to a science junkie like myself!

Thanks to Netgalley, Claire Prentice and the publisher for the DRC!

I loved this book and read it in one sitting. It tells the story of lobotomist Walter Freeman through Operation Ice Pick, Freeman's campaign to lobotomize thousands of patients in West Virginia's state psychiatric hospitals. It is a difficult subject but an important one. I found it fascinating and felt like I learned a lot. The author has clearly done a ton of original research as shown in her footnotes. I was surprised at the archivist from George Washington University saying the author doesn't cite the Walter Freeman Papers there -- she cites them multiple times. I highly recommend Doctor Ice Pick.

3★
“Freeman was a natural showman, and from the start, he had aggressively courted the press, taking them out to lunch, feeding them pithy sound bites, and inviting them and their wives to sit in on operations.”

That’s not what I’d be looking for in a brain surgeon, but then he wasn’t one, technically. He was a doctor who made a name for himself in the middle of the 20th century by performing lobotomies through the eye socket, near the tear ducts, one eye at a time.

He liked to time himself, see how fast he could tap in and cut through the connection in the brain, and when he had a good audience, he liked to do both eyes at the same time, one with each hand, like some kind of circus performer.

The author says procedure was “described in the pages of the New York Times as ‘history-making . . . a shining example of therapeutic courage’ that ‘cuts away sick parts of the human personality.’

The reality could be very different.”

I’m old enough that I remember hearing about some of this. Freeman lived in a well-to-do part of the country, but he was next door to one of the poorest states in America, West Virginia. The hospitals sound Dickensian.

“If a patient was incontinent, they were tied to the toilet or left naked in a room with a cement floor where they sat in pools of urine and feces. There weren’t enough staff to keep everyone clean.
. . .
Far from unique, the desperate conditions at Huntington were replicated in hospitals across America.”

Hospitals overwhelmed by the numbers of extremely difficult patients were keen to take up Freeman’s offer to make people well enough to leave, “his catchphrase, ‘Lobotomy gets them home.’”

This is not for the faint-hearted but it is an excellent account of the man and some of the famous patients who underwent this treatment, such as Rosemary Kennedy, JFK’s sister, who was made worse and hidden away forever. Some were improved, some became like children, some were badly damaged, or even died.

When I looked up one of the footnotes to a 2008 ‘Guardian’ article, I realised the quote I was double-checking may not have been from Freeman, but from one of his former patients who wrote a book (with a journalist) that the newspaper article was about.

I don’t know how much original research the author did, but the article covers much of the same ground.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jan/13/neuroscience.medicalscience

Wikipedia has extensive information on Freeman, as well, but I did appreciate that if I’d not seen this Amazon offering, I might never have stumbled across his story – and it IS both fascinating and terrifying.

Incidentally, the Kindle version is very messy reading since the footnotes all appear in the same typeface right in the middle of pages, depending on the size font you use. The PDF version is spaced out properly with footnotes at the bottom. I don’t know if you can download PDFs from Amazon or not, but NetGalley has the option.

Thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for the copy for review.

This was a short, disturbing nonfiction book about a horrific man named Walter Freeman, the American "pioneer" of prefrontal and transorbital lobotomies. Freeman was a neuroscientist (NOT a doctor or surgeon), who learned of lobotomies after watching its founder, Antonio Moniz, perform them. When he saw the results, he was determined to bring it to the US. Although he claimed to do it for the good of the patients, it was obvious that he had ulterior motives. He always aspired towards greatness and celebrity, and he saw lobotomies as an obvious way to get there.

Freeman approached the West Virginia state government and mental health system with a simple value proposition. At the time, their mental hospitals and asylums were overcrowded, underfunded, disgusting, inhumane hellholes of "medical facilities" - the stereotypical kind of place that you see in old movies or American Horror Story, with unqualified people treating patients horrifically, patients chained to toilets or kept in rooms surrounded by urine and feces, dozens and dozens of patients to a room. Freeman said he had a simple way to make this situation better and save the state a lot of money: he would go into these hospitals, lobotomize dozens of people in a day, and, according to his research, a good percentage of them would be well enough to go back to their families after the operation. Enticed by the economic proposition, Freeman's utterly charming persona, and the numbers that Freeman brought with him on success rates, the state government agreed to fund Operation Ice Pick. (Lobotomies were initially done by drilling holes into the patient's skull, but Freeman found an easier way to do it: he modified the instrument used after being inspired by an ice pick he found in his house, and began inserting that device into patients' eye sockets to perform the operation.)

Freeman lobotomized over 900 men, women, and children in West Virginia state hospitals, and could have performed as many as 4,000 lobotomies in 23 states in his career. According to Freeman, Operation Ice Pick was a success: he said around 40-50% of patients were able to go home, and that means everything worked out. But what he leaves out is that several patients died on the operating table, some lost all motor function or impulse control, and the vast majority of "success stories" came away with no personality, no spark, no soul, and no joy for life.

We now consider lobotomies to be an inhumane form of mental health treatment, but at the time, they were common - at first, as a last resort for when other treatments failed, but Freeman began using them somewhat arbitrarily to cure anything from cancer to anxiety to schizophrenia.

The book is short, but packs a punch. It describes Freeman and his cult of personality, the history and science of lobotomies, the dangers and aftereffects of the procedure, how lobotomies slowly phased out, and Freeman's legacy. There are many patient stories that stick with you, but I was shocked at the story of Howard Dully. He was a young boy whose stepmother approached Freeman complaining that he wouldn't listen to her, he wouldn't go to sleep even when he was tired, he would wear a sweater outside on sunny days, and he refused to take a shower. (Sounds like any other young boy, right?) In response to this behavior, Freeman lobotomized this twelve-year-old boy (instead of recommending any other treatment) - and it didn't fix his behavior at all, in fact, his behavior became worse because lobotomies are known to destroy impulse control. His parents ultimately gave him up to be a ward of the state. Now, Dully is 70 years old, married, and has a career in computer science - but it took him more than 30 years to get his life back on track after his lobotomy. He even wrote a book about it, which I'm now interested in reading: [book:My Lobotomy: A Memoir|503248].

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley! Highly recommend this book for anyone interested in disturbing nonfiction, medical history, and lessons learned from history.