5 comments about Into the Blue: A Father's Flight and a Daughter's Return.

1. Into the Blue: A Father's Flight and a Daughter's Return
   this was a great book. It's really scary from the perspective that it reinforces what we hear that we must take charge (or someone must do so on our behalf) of our healthcare options.



2. Into the Blue is a funny, touching, inspiring and educational ride that we all need to take to deal with what this life may hand us. Edsall and her sister did amazing work with their dad in a situation many of us have or will have to deal with. Buy multiple copies and send them to everyone you love.



3. OK, I'm humble enough to admit I was wrong. When one of my best friends, a Volvo-driving soccer mom if there ever was one, suggested that I read and PURCHASE "Into The Blue", I was skeptical at best. Scenario: author and sister rehabilitate stroke-afflicted father so he can - *gag* - fly again. Yet another "chick" book. Ho-hum.
   
   So untrue. It's been a long, long while since I've been so entertained, overwhelmed, affected, whatever, by a memoir. Susan Edsall has a great gift for writing, and for viewing the world by crushing the rose colored glasses. If this were simply a novel about how our heroine pulls her dad back from the abyss, it'd probably sell a bazillion copies in the romance section. "Into The Blue" is not simple - not by a long shot.
   
   First off, it should be required reading for every med student, neurology resident, or anyone who has contact with stroke victims. The start of Edsall's tale is pretty grim; not for what happened to her father, but for the reaction of the medical community to his plight - indifference, condescension, and that "oh well, that's what happens, nothing we can do" type of nonsense that we've all seen too well from supposed professionals who you'd think would have more insight and creativity to go with all that specialized education.
   
   Love of a parent pushes the Edsall family into a series of tough decisions, but the neat part of this book is the places that they come to as a result of these mileposts. The author seems as surprised as the reader at times by the way in which her father's stroke and her family's actions cause her (and all of them) to reconnect in new and very meaningful fashion. Susan's descriptions of her relationships past and present with her mother, her husband and above all her sister Sharon are hysterical - and very moving. I could relate 80 percent of her patter to my own family, which was an experience both interesting and disturbing!
   
   This is a tremendous piece of writing, worthy of wide distribution and discussion.



4. This book is the fascinating story of two sisters and their dad who was suffering from a stroke. The sisters are determined to get him back to his airplane. In this book the author underlines the support a patient needs from his doctor for a fast and safe recovery. This book will definitely be a welcome read to any one suffered from a stroke.
   
   After eliminating my coffee habit with the help of a wonderful coffee substitute made from soya beans called "Soyffee", I'm feeling so much better. My doctor recommended it to help lower my cholesterol and promote strong bones. It's available online at www.S o y c o f f e e.com.



5. I loved this book! The writing was so sharp and funny, and the story is heartwarming and hilarious, without being overly sentimental.
   
   Susan Edsall does suggest you go off coffee slowly before you start the plan. This would minimize headaches during detox. I couldn't wait to get started so, of course, did it all at once and had the most horrible awful headache for 4 straight days. I finally broke down and had a 1/2 cup coffee one day instead of taking aspirin and that did the trick...for the moment.
   
   You feel as if you've known the author and her family all your life after reading this book, and you really care about them.

4 comments about Living in the Shadow of the Freud Family.

1. Sophie Freud's new book is more than a history of a famous family in the 20thc, but a history of the century in itself. The long arc of Germany's attempt to achieve at least European, if not worldwide, supremacy, is told through the eyes of a family that lived it.
   
   The book is neither long nor hard to read, therefore, I was disappointed when Sophie thanks her editors for helping her cut it down. I want to read it all. Basically the book is Sophie's mother's autobiography. Said Ernestine, who liked to be called Esti married Martin Freud, one of Sigmund Freud's sons. She wrote her book late in her life, and her writings are in Roman type, whereas Sophie's comments are in italics, and thus this whole book which was written AND edited by Sophie becomes a dual biography.
   
   Accompanying the stories of these 2 women are many, many letters written by other members of the Freud family, and from them we can make our own judgements about the people and compare them to the ones that Sophie makes. These other letters are in various fonts.
   
   The mother, Esti, seems at first to be a simple lovely girl in love with Martin, but Sigmund says of her "she is not only maliciously meshugge but also mad in the medical sense." We see this in the early years of their marriage. Talk about dysfunctional families!
   
   The family split up in 1938: Esti and Sophie went to Paris, and Martin and his son, Walter, went to London. For the next 4 years mother and daughter struggled to keep alive, to find decent lodging and food, and to keep barely one step ahead of Hitler as he ran down France. Vichy France became a haven for the Freuds for a while, but eventually they went to Casablanca and then to Lisbon, and finally to the USA. (The movie "Casablanca" may have been fiction, but it was a fiction that many people really lived.)
   
   I have to admire both women who essentially became trilingual in a very short time. For all of Esti's complaining and bitterness (her letters to Walter during the war years must have been devastating to the young man who could do nothing to help). But as a speech therapist, Esti, who first taught in Vienna, learned to teach both in France and then in the USA. Sophie went straight from the lycee in France (already a 2nd language for her) to Radcliffe College. Both women earned Ph.Ds.
   
   Don't be dismayed by the family tree at the beginning. In fact, ignore it at first. However, I wish that dates had been included. The important characters will become clear upon reading. At times the book sounds like a novel, but it is not. Sophie and her brother were thus separated for most of their lives. Walter died not long before Sophie finished the book and his children found about 200 letters from their mother to him. Although most of this book was finished, Sophie had to incorporate many of them into her new publication.
   
   This is a sad book, but who cannot say that the 20th c, esp. the first half, was not sad, in the deepest sense of the word? I enoyed the book thoroughly and I think you will as well. Do not expect to find out much about Sigmund however - that is reserved for other books. You will find out about many members of both the Freud and Drucker (Esti's family) families - some uplifting news and some destructive habits. Many of the Freud family were able to escape Austria, but many were not and were thus exterminated. The last page of the book which contains the final words of both Esti and Sophie (for now at least - let's hope she writes more) is indeed sad. I did not mind reading it early on. You choose.



2. Sophie Freud's recent book, Living Under the Shadow of the Freud Family, is most interesting and compelling. She masterfully interweaves perspectives on the private (and public) lives of her family and herself, thus offering a memoir that at times reads like a first-rate novel.
   
   Professor Freud's wit, mischievousness, and clear-eyed vision pervades the various narratives and adds a most important and entertaining dimension--not only in her diary entries but in her numerous candid and often wonderfully blunt assessments of others (family members, professors, etc.) and in her self-reflexive comments (e.g. when she reflects puckishly that she may be writing this book to display her own achievements for the Annee Scolaire prize--"who knows, perhaps I am writing this book just for that purpose"). It is this kind of serious play, throughout, that makes this memoir so very readable and revealing, at the same time Sophie Freud's commentary or her mother's autobiographical narrative or numerous letters continue to remind readers of the shadow of her grandfather and other relatives (Tante Janne, her brother, her father, et al. ) and of the sinister shadow of Hitler and WW2 which impinges trenchantly on the lives of the Freud family, not to mention the world. I am reminded of the author, W.G, Sebald, photos included. In short, among other things, I have come away with a very deep and complex feeling for Professor Freud's mother, along with multiple insights into her own fascinating self.



3. This book is a fascinating read, both in terms of family dynamics and world history. Through letters, diaries and commentary from various family members, Sophie Freud (Sigmund Freud's granddaughter) gives life to her mother Esti, including her troubled marriage to Freud's son Martin, her struggle to be accepted by the Freud family, and her difficult relationships with her children. The book also has moments of historic drama, such as when Sophie and her mother flee Paris by bicycle two days before the Nazis invade. There are also bits of humor, such as when the teenage Sophie's diary reveals that she is much more concerned about boys, her figure, and finishing her qualifying exams than she is about the approaching Nazis. Overall, the book provides unique insight into a complicated (and famous) family at an especially charged time in history. I really enjoyed it.Living in the Shadow of the Freud Family



4. Sophie Freud, the author of this wonderful book, has kept a diary most of her life, as did her mother, Esti, along with many letters and documents of her fractured family. These documents are the scaffolding of a compelling story of romance, marriage, betrayal, escape and ultimately, the need to reinvent one's self in another country. Ms.Freud uses these papers (in French and German), along with her own commentary and that of her brother. The tale of her escape from Paris on a bicycle with her mother is vivid. She also uses photographs of her family and documents which increase the appeal of the book.
   For anyone interested in a life of the twentieth century, with war, loss and emigration, this is a wonderful book.

5 comments about Just Breathe Normally (American Lives).

1. A beautiful book...snapshots threaded together with lyrical prose, rich and textured. With soul and heart. You'll dog-ear pages, you'll underline revelations, you'll keep it on your nightstand, you'll want to share it with the world...but only if the world gets their own copy. You won't dare part with yours. And you shouldn't.



2. Without hype or hysterics, this is a memoir of the perfect form. Deceptively simple in its prose structure, the many emotions, the many stories and the many desires build to a very powerful story. A must read for format and for the story.



3. Peggy Shumaker is an English professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the author of several books of poetry, including Blaze and Underground Rivers. Her poetry background is evident in every carefully sculpted sentence of her memoir, Just Breathe Normally. This book is more than just pretty prose, though. It's a gripping account of one woman's struggle through a potentially life-ending accident and through her chaotic childhood. The wounds are on the body and in the mind. This is a book I will read again and again to decipher how Shumaker makes her magic happen. Clearly, this is a seasoned writer with an intriguing story to tell.
   
   The beginning sets up the hardy Norwegian stock that Shumaker descends from, and, more importantly, the history of women in her family marrying because they were pregnant. In the case of her great-grandmother, a birth resulted in her death, and with her mother, it figuratively ended her life. The impact of this history is felt in Shumaker's decision not to have children and to marry later in life. Sadly, another child almost ended her life; a careless one driving a three-wheeler on the same bicycle path on which she and her husband were cycling.
   
   The title of Just Breathe Normally relates to her mother's lifelong asthma, as well as Shumaker's own problems breathing after her accident. The image of breath ripples throughout. One of my favorite passages is this one about her mother's asthma: "The reason she quit eating. The reason she loved quiet more than her own kids...The reason she didn't want to be here. The reason she left. The reason we buried her breathless." So many passages are lyrical, succinct, and see into the heart of her characters and their situations.
   
   Aside from difficult breathing, Shumaker's life-threatening injuries also resulted in sight and memory problems. This off-kilter feeling is used throughout the book, as well as switching time periods between her accident, present day injuries, and her childhood. This fluctuating time mimics the way memory and breathing work. In trying to piece the details of her accident together to understand it, Shumaker says, "It takes months before my mind can see these nuggets not as separate chunks, but as part of one vein, as story." This sums up her memoir's structure as well, and those little sections add up to a satisfying whole.
   
   The heart of Just Breathe Normally is about Shumaker's unstable childhood with a wonderful, supportive grandmother, and young, immature parents that couldn't stay together. Even though these character types are familiar, each of them manages to surprise throughout. Shumaker is a generous narrator, towards the boy who almost ended her life with his careless driving, towards the mother who neglected her, and towards her absent father. There is no whining about her life or her circumstances, and there isn't a single false note. This is a narrator who knows herself, and her family, and lays it all out for us in rich details and vivid writing.
   
   Her parents' marriage is introduced as My Father's Wives #1; a clever way to set the tone, as well as her father's future marriages. Shumaker describes her absent father as, "We grew around the empty place his absence left in the family. When he was in the house, everybody felt crowded. It felt like having company that hadn't called first." But even the father surprises towards the end of the book.
   
   The section of "Mother's First Words After the Birth" is also powerful:
   
   Because I was her first, no one listened when my mother cried...So I was almost born between floors, my mother clamping shut her thighs, some panicky orderly pinning her shoulders to the gurney. My father, a lanky teenager dreaming of a shovel-head Harley with a suicide clutch, paced...Face to the wall, my mother spoke from far away. "I'm sorry it isn't a boy for you, honey"...Imagine being the woman who would think, just after giving birth for the first time, that. Imagine her saying it out loud to her young man. Imagine her writing it down in the baby book.
   
   Just Breathe Normally is what a book should be: moving and multi-layered. There is a surprise in the ending, which I won't ruin, but after knowing it, the previous passages become even more interesting. Pick up Just Breathe Normally, it just might change the way you breathe, and think.



4. I thought Peggy has an awesome way of writing..at once a prose poem and then a flowing narrative. I had a hard putting this book down it was very engrossing and powerful. Thank you Peggy for a moving memoir. I really like the poem she quotes at the end of her book--it isn't hers but it very well could have been. I won't quote it here but the poem will stay with me for a long time; I have written it down as not to forget what it says and what it means.



5. At first glance the simple, short paragraphs trick you into almost missing the very profound thoughts and deep feelings of the writer. This is a marvelous read!

No comments about Doctors' Work: The Legacy of Sir William Osler.

1 comments about Mi Mamacita Tiene Alzheimer's: My Beloved Mother Has Alzheimer's.

1. This book is a helpful resource for family members who are caring for, or who have, a family member suffering from Alzheimer's disease or another chronic illness. By sharing her story, the author lets you know that you are not alone--that others like you are experiencing similar ups and downs caring for a loved one.

5 comments about The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming: And Other Lessons I Learned From Breast Cancer.

1. This is a very moving account of one woman's ordeal with breast cancer. I read it in only a matter of hours; I was impressed with not only her courage and strength, but with the humor with which she dealt with cancer.
   
   Whether you have cancer, know someone who does, or simply are interested in finding a cure, this is a great read on the subject.



2. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 29. Exactly 1 year and almost 2 months ago. Humor is what helped me through my year of hell. I had a masectomy, 16 chemo treatments and 33 radiation treatments. Mt new lift kit is scheduled for next summer. I tell my story to anyone that will listen. Jennie Nash hits it right on the nose. Funny, my name is Jen. Thank you..



3. As a mother of a newly diagnosed breast cancer patient, I found this book to be extremely helpful in offering me a glimpse into the dynamics of this disease. The emotional and physical pain of the author brings to the forefront how very devastating this disease is to all involved. I have bought this book as gifts for friends who have been diagnosed after a survivor recommended it to me.



4. I read this book cover to cover. It is very worth reading for anyone facing mastectomy and a choice of breast reconstruction methods. The author had a terrible time recovering from breast cancer surgery, but it is very important to distinguish between the physical difficulties caused by the surgery itself (relatively minor) and the physical difficulties caused by the choice of reconstruction (major). The large abdominal scar mentioned in another review is a feature of her "free TRAM flap" reconstruction, a reconstruction choice that can have excellent cosmetic effects when it works but is very physically costly otherwise. I recommend instead the books on breast cancer by Musa Mayer, who is more thoughtful (and also a survivor) and much more medically informative.



5. This book, The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming and other Lessons I Learned from Breast Cancer, was just what I needed. I was diagnosed with the dreaded BC three weeks ago. I went through a lumpectomy a week ago. I spent the last 3 weeks pouring over technical medical books, reviewing statistics, researching information on the web and learning as much as I could about the disease. I purchased this book on a whim, thinking it may give a perspective that would help alleviate the stress I was going through.
   I laughed, cried and also realized that I was not alone. The descriptions of friends and family mirror my situation as well.
   The book is now an all time favorite of mine that I hope others will read and also be inspired to tell their story.

5 comments about Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind.

1. This is an excellent, objective, and readable evaluation of the work and legacy of Sigmund Freud. Those who put this in the "Freud bashing" category appear not to desire an objective evaluation of Freud as a clinician nor as a scientist: Kramer presents the reader with such in a lively and precise way. He also presents the impact that Freud's ideas had on Western culture, and it is here where the impact of Freud is beyond question. Whether this impact has been for ill or good is open to question, speaking generally or more specifically in psychiatric and psychological science.



2. No, he wasn't. But he was much more an imaginative investigator, something of a literary and romantic writer more than a scientist, not at all what people imagine. Like Marx before him, many of his theories can be refuted but his influence and insight remain valuable. Marx and Freud will remain important critics of traditional society and of the bourgeois order which poorly replaced it. The truths they taught were less literally true than insightfully stimlulating for all time.
   
   Peter Kramer is at once an admirer and a critic of Freud who has, however, a perfect right to be both, but he fails to write a really persuasive apercu of Freud. Kramer knows his Freud and his psychology but he is not firm in historical knowledge. The book does not impress.



3. The "Eminent Lives" series has some great writing and equally good research into some of the most significant people to walk the Earth (with the exception of Armstrong's book on Mohammed).
   Kramer does a good job of taking Freud off the pedestal that many have used to create an altar for an atheist. But by showing Freud to be a mere human, he goes out of his way to point out his opinion that Freud, with all his faults, was "The Inventor of the Modern Mind."
   
   While I don't personally agree with Kramer's evaluation of Freud any more than I did with a lot of his opinions in his "Listening to Prozac" book, this is a book worth reading to get a far better balanced view of a man who was responsible for much of our modern day vocabulary in dealing with our fellow humans.
   
   Freud had a lot of dumb ideas, was a shameless self-promoter, ignored his own research, invented and lied about the complex nature of some of his patients, but at the end of the day, as Kramer points out, was one of the humans to leave the Earth with a net plus on his life ledger. Unfortunately some of his patients paid the price of his opinions with their lives in ruins, but it will be up to your own value system to determine whether this was worth it. After all, many Clinton supporters agree with his view that the lives of a million Tutsi were not worth the life of a single American as he allowed the most intense genocide in the history of mankind in the modern era to occur on his watch. His approval ratings must make him "right."
   
   If you don't want to buy this book and see it in a bookstore, just take five minutes to read the last chapter to see that Kramer holds Freud in high regard using this measuring stick.
   
   This is not a "five-star" book, but i gave it that rating to balance the superficial reviews by Freud groupies who read this book with blinders on, if they read it at all.



4. Kramer purports to be an admirer of Freud, but this is a wholesale dismissal of his work, citing a number of misdiagnosed cases in Freud's later years. Writing in the name of clinical science, Kramer tells us that Freud is in need of radical re-evalutation, since he was unscientific in his approach to human behavior. This is the worst kind of reductionism, ignoring Freud's enormous contribution to the humanities. Modern literary criticism (e.g. the new critics) and poetry, not to mention sociology and anthropology, would be impossible today had not Freud written "The Interpretation of Dreams." Freud is to modern literary and social analysis what Darwin is to biological science. Poets like William Blake and Yeats would be incomprehensible without the analytic techniques and tools provided by Freud, and the great thinker and media analyst, Marshall McLuhan, to name but one distinguished disciple among many, was Freudian through and through.



5. Kramer's lucid writing style is refreshing.This small volume will give the reader a critical review of Freud's major writings. Highlights of Freud's biography add spice to the narrative. Kramer uses our contemporary knowledge in psychiatry to rediagnose some of Freud's patients.I got a deeper understanding of some of the famous cases like Anna O,Dora, the Wolf Man the Rat Man. Like many, Kramer agrees that Freuds impact on the development of the field of psychotherapy and psychological thinking have been hugh. Freud was not perfect.This book help highlight the imperfections. More than that,it helps clarify in a short space, work that took Freud years and years to develop and 23 volumes of the Standard edition to Express.Like Freud,Kramer is a very talented writer as this and his other four volumes show.

No comments about Laurance S. Rockefeller: Catalyst For Conservation.

No comments about When the Diagnosis Is Multiple Sclerosis: Help, Hope, and Insights from an Affected Physician (The Praeger Series on Contemporary Health and Living).

5 comments about Walking Out on the Boys.

1. Men groping women. Men coming on to women, and making incredible jackasses of themselves in the process. Men getting drunk and acting like barbarians. Men with one thing in mind. Men whose compulsion to talk about sex is so strong that they do it at highly inappropriate times in public. Men who think that pressuring women is their God-given right. If you think that what I just described is a high school football team on an overdose of steroids, you're wrong. These sexual antics weren't perpetrated by adolescents with testosterone bubbling out their ears, they were committed by male doctors at Stanford University. Not being stupid, these demigods put two and two together and realized that they could use their power to pressure women. One of these men made a fatal mistake, though: he pressured Dr. Frances Conley, a topnotch neurosurgeon and renowned researcher at Stanford. Bad move, fella. I suppose that guy never learned that if you're going to pick a fight, you don't provoke someone who can whack you back so hard you just might rethink whether it's wise to be a bully.

   As publicity spread about Dr. Conley's fight, more and more women came forward to reveal their stories. This was certainly an eye-opening book. Before reading it, I'd never given much thought about the sexual harassment of women in medicine and allied healthcare fields. Perhaps we're more civilized here in Michigan, because I've never seen or heard of any such hanky-panky. Well, let me revise that last statement: I have witnessed a lot of sexual inducement, but what I saw was women chasing men not the other way around. But everyone knows that those California folks are trendsetters.

   Dr. Conley never envisioned herself as a trendsetter, though. For years, she passively participated in the abuse until a concatenation of events convinced her that it was time to draw a line in the sand. To make a long story short, the men didn't believe she'd put up much of a fight, but she did, and they lost. Big time.

   (...) Perhaps the most chilling message in this book is that some men in positions of power are willing to use that power to stifle the careers of women. So what is an attractive woman to assume? That if she goes into medicine her pulchritude will serve as a magnet for sexual harassment? Perhaps this abuse is, unbeknownst to me, more pervasive than I think. I suppose because most of my friends are women, I can't understand men who view women as being somehow inferior. However, you shouldn't necessarily construe from that statement that I think women physicians are as competent, on average, as male physicians. There's no doubt that some are, and there's no doubt that Dr. Conley is a superior physician, not just competent. (...) My only major criticism of the book is that it is too focused upon abuse of women by men. Since the core of this book is hinged upon some of the depredations that ensue when power is abused, I think she could have achieved a more balanced perspective by pointing out that powerful people often use their power against men, too ý not just women. I've seen male docs fight one another with such a vehemence that it made the stories in Dr. Conley's book seem as pleasant as afternoon tea and cookies with a neighbor. Consequently, while I don't intend to trivialize the unfortunate reality of the abuse Dr. Conley documents, it's important to keep in mind that this abuse is but one aspect of a much larger problem. In defense of Dr. Conley, broadening the scope of this book to include other aspects of hospital politics would have diluted the message she wished to inculcate, and it would have made for a very unwieldy book. With that in mind, I suppose I'm on shaky ground by wishing that her book had a wider focus. Her book, her demeanor, her dedication, her resolve, and her competence are commendable. Dr. Conley is a great doctor and I am happy to have met her, however indirectly, by reading this book.

   Review by Kevin Pezzi, M.D.




2. As a minority faculty in the academics Frances Conley's book vividly portrays the reality of the ivory tower that, though pretentiously progressive in ideas, is way behind the iota of gender equality that exists outside the academe. I, sometimes, feel I am living in the medieval period when entering the academe.

   When I first came across this book I thought this must have been written in the seventies and I could share it with my students as a historical autobiography of sexism in an academic institution. I was horrified to find that it was written in the nineties about one of the most prestigious institution in California.

   I have always felt alone, alienated in the academe and of course disconnected from other women who were struggling too much to bother with the problems of their women peers. This book validated my experience and helped me understand where my alienation was coming from.

   I wish this book could be a standard read for all freshman students in all universities. Only when women who appear to be in power tell their stories of powerlessness and abuse can we act collectively to stop the misogyny that exists among our men and more particularly among our elite men.




3. I'm not an MD or a PhD; I don't work in a hospital or academia. Yet I too have experienced sexual harassment, and I too have consulted the EEO department that is supposed to get involved in handling these issues, and I found that they were disinterested, that they gave subtle and obvious messages that the problem was "my" problem and not the corporation's, and that they relied on my being too timid or unmotivated to initiate a lawsuit so the whole thing could be, well, ignored. Sexual harassment exists because the society permits men (even encourages men) to expect that it is their right to harass women. Not all men harass, and not all men admire harassers. In fact, it is quite the opposite, but those who possess the attitude that women who dare to compete must be put down through sexual threat or debasement will harass (they also enjoy and even need it, since these men have very real problems). Through her description of her own experiences, the author illuminates the social mechanism of harassment. She also brings to light the story that all we women know -- what it feels like to be the victim not just of a troubled person but of an organization that insists she accept the role of victim. When we are harassed, we women discover the battle we are in, not against one man but against all those societies which are founded on (this does sound harsh, I know) the hatred of women. This is a marvelous book -- hard to read at times if you've been there -- but it is important that women know what we are facing (especially our daughters, who like us may have been programmed to think that all men will be nice to us, will treat us fairly, and that if someone is abusive, it is our own fault, there is something wrong with me, etc.). Important too is having the author detail the steps she took to handle the harassment. This is a very supportive book for anyone enduring just such a situation (harassment as well as gender discrimination, which is a lot more rife and a lot less obvious). I'd recommend this to any woman who is willing to step outside of the traditional role, because we all need to know what we are up against, how the system is going to fail us, and especially all the steps we are entitled to take to combat this problem so that we change society's viewpoint and not just our own. I'd also recommend this to men, because there are many who are supportive of women in the workplace. Our husbands and boyfriends need to read this book to know how difficult it is for women, because in the end we can only effect a change if we all stand together.



4. Frances Conley offers a compelling indictment of gender discrimination at Stanford Medical School, past and present, focussing on her own recent experience. I started this book at midnight and could not put it down until finishing it at 4 a.m. Conley provides case after case of medical school professors given virtually absolute and unchecked power over their subordinates and their subordinates' careers, abusing that power, and the medical school administration covering up that abuse. While she never addresses the issues of solidarity in the face of sexual harassment, her cases all indicate that when one woman protests, she loses, and only a pattern of abuse reported by multiple women leads to any punishment of the harassers at all. Conley was fortunate and grateful that 37 others came forward to support her claim that Gerald Silverberg engaged in inappropriate sexual contact and other activities counterindicating his capability for leadership. I'll be passing this book onto many women who have had the choice to be treated at Stanford Hospital and may well now rethink that choice.



5. Sadly, any woman who's achieved a doctorate (& not just in medicine) will relate wholeheartedly to this book. I greatly admire Dr. Conley's unbelievable courage in standing up to the Boys' Club & trying to make things better for women in academia. Hopefully this book will encourage ALL women to stand up to the misogyny & be heard.