Synopses & Reviews
In this poignant collection, doctors who are writers (and vice versa) relate their real-life journeys from intern to specialist, student to teacher, reflecting on the rewards, disillusionments, and triumphs encountered along the way. Featuring a wide array of distinguished voices, including Peter Kramer, Kay Redfield Jamison, Robert Coles, Lauren Slater, Sandeep Jauhar, and Perri Klass, these original stories create a vivid mural of the medical world and provide invaluable insight for both doctors in training and longtime physicians. portrays the broad arc of a doctor's life, from a medical student's uneasy first encounter with a cadaver and her realization that the experience's redemption will lie ahead in the lives saved, to a resident's reliance on dance during her grueling year in an inner-city hospital, and a veteran doctor's profound ruminations on what it means to really listen to a patient's story.
Review
"Medical students and medical professionals will enjoy these perspectives on their profession; they will likely encounter or have encountered many of the obstacles narrated." Library Journal
Review
"Here, some of the best-known names in medical writing are joined by powerful new voices to help elucidate the mysterious and grueling transformation from non-doctor to doctor. Readers will gain insight into both the exuberance and disillusionment of physicians-in-training. A remarkable collection." Christine Montross, M.D., author of Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab
Synopsis
Physicians recount true, personal stories from their professional lives in this inspired anthology by new and known writers.
About the Author
Lee Gutkind is the founder and editor of the literary journal Creative Nonfiction and a pioneer in the field of narrative nonfiction. Gutkind is also the editor of In Fact and Becoming a Doctor, the author of Almost Human, and has written books about baseball, health care, travel, and technology. A Distinguished Writer in Residence at Arizona State University, he lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Tempe, Arizona.