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Publishing October 14, 2025 | 240 pages | Paperback
This book will restore your faith in life. It might even save it.
Surviving Life: The Art of Resilience is not "based on a true story." It is a true story. More precisely, it is a memoir of dozens of Dr. Tom Schneider's true stories: from devilish schoolboy hijinks and death-defying heroics during his time in the military to medical miracles and a heated disagreement with his boss, the US surgeon general.
In this updated version of Dr. Schneider's second book, including a bonus epilogue, discover the authenticity of Dr. Schneider's storytelling voice-the way he writes to you and only you-and the humorous wisdom only someone who has truly survived life can give you.
In the final few chapters, after reading Dr. Schneider's astounding stories, when you think you there's no way he can provide you with more value, you'll learn the basics of human health and wellness-from someone who learned them the hard way.
It's a wonder that Dr. Schneider lived to write this book. That he did is a testament to his fighting but humble spirit, as well as his desire to live up to the true meaning of his profession. The word "doctor" originally comes from the Latin docere. It does not mean "to heal" or "to cure." It means, instead, "to teach."
Surviving Life will teach you something about life, death, and the human spirit on every single page.
Dr. Tom Schneider is no ordinary man. Raised in a borderline abusive family and brought up in a no-nonsense Catholic school environment, he managed to retain his sense of humor and mischief throughout high school and college. He served as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, then, despite an average-at-best work ethic when it came to scholarship, decided to give medical school a shot. That shot turned into a career that became his true calling and would span the rest of his life. With a humble, common-sense approach to health and wellness, he practiced medicine at the likes of Bethesda Naval Hospital, Harvard University, and the National Institutes of Health. He can hardly operate his cell phone, but he could remove your spleen with a ballpoint pen. He's put that pen to its more traditional use in A Physician's Apology, published in 2013, and his second book, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man, now newly published with a bonus epilogue as Surviving Life: The Art of Resilience.