5 comments about It's Not About the Hair: And Other Certainties of Life and Cancer.

1. This book is written in such a personable manner, I felt like I was making a friend while reading the book. The way Debra deals with painful and scary situations with humor and caring diffuse the negative emotions attached to cancer, hospitals and dying. I was really impressed with how she integrated different styles of spirituality into a practice that sounds flexible and comfortable. I am not an active church goer anymore, but Debra's welcoming acceptance of others and continuing search for answers for the big questions in life gave me interest in more actively pursuing a spiritual life. She gives me hope that I will some day find a spiritual community to grow with.



2. Debra Jarvis has the perspective few other cancer patients have: that of a cancer patient and cancer chaplain. When I think of "chaplain", I imagine a older gentleman with a collar and a bible, ready to read me my last rites; Debra is the antithesis of this. She is a young, funny woman with a surprisingly secular approach to God, and she is able to minister to people with cancer in a way that touches everyone. And when she is diagnosed with stage II breast cancer, her reactions and emotions strike a nerve as genuinely human and real -- her training as a chaplain doesn't give her any special superhuman strength to deal with it more than any of her patients.
   
   This book is a great insight into a cancer patient's journey, especially for a loved one or caregiver. When a friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer, I think this book was as helpful for her as it was for me in learning to speak about it. Just like a great film, this book will make you laugh and cry, but ultimately uplift the experience of cancer and shine light on the dark shadows that surround it.



3. I found this book while browsing in a bookstore early in my chemotherapy adventure. In many ways it helped me survive the ordeal. The writing is wonderful--engaging, humorous, realistic, and at times heart-wrenching. There are many "this is how I survived cancer" books around, but this one is different somehow. It meant so much to me, and I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone who has received a cancer diagnosis.



4. This is a MUST BUY book! It is an amazing story told by an amazing woman. You will laugh, you may cry, and I guarantee your heart will be touched as you hear her story of cancer and how she dealt with it. Her emails describing encounters with pills and doctors will make you laugh. Debra understands cancer from both sides, that of a patient and as a Chaplain who counsels people. If your life has ever been touched by cancer, you will benefit from reading this book. Joe Barnes, Pacific Science Center, Seattle.



5. As an oncology nurse, I appreciated Ms. Jarvis' candid yet humorous rendering of her experiences. Her wit is evident on each page, even in the more telling personal episodes with her patients and during her own battle with cancer.
   
   There are no major theological breakthroughs here (those seeking deeper spiritual answers may need to look elsewhere), but that was not the intent of her book. Instead, she brings the reader through a devistating chapter in her life, describing her struggles and her often unique point of view. (I will never again think of cleaning the toilet in quite the same way.) The profound impact of cancer is not diminished, and yet she never fails to find something to laugh about.
   
   This book is a must-read for anyone who cares for patients with cancer, or those who are facing it themselves.

5 comments about This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor.

1. This is a wonderful, well written, book about a heroic figure who has endured much intimidation by anti-choice thugs who want to control women's bodies. It's a book I would recommend especially to young woman as they have a 50% chance of finding themselves in need of a save and legal abortion sometime in their life and if things keep going the way they are, they may be unable to obtain one. The stories Dr. Wicklund relates about herself and her patients would be unheard of in other developed Western nations so you get an indication of how out of step the U.S. is with respect to women's health. The book contained interesting medical facts about abortion procedures so you'll get factual information about an issue that has been clouded by a great deal of misinformation courtesy of the anti-choice folks. I was surprised not to see more endorsements on the book jacket from well known feminists other than Barbara Erenreich but that may be an indication of their own fear of being targeted. This is an inspiring story of a courageous woman who followed her passion and sacrificed much to serve women in need.



2. This book is simply excellent. No matter your feelings on the subject matter, the memoir is well-written, with a compelling story. Dr. Wicklund makes an excellent heroine for the 21st century--we see her plodding on with resolve, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. But we also see moments of doubt, of reflection, that let us know that she is human. This is a very good book.
   
   Dr. Wicklund focuses her memoir on herself, but also on her patients. The many, many women that she has served over the years play a huge role in this book. However, what was most interesting and eye-opening to me was her recounting of various tactics used by anti-choice protesters, and what she had to do to keep herself safe and to keep working. I had heard of doctors being killed, but I truly had no clue about the everyday lengths to which the "antis" would go in their self-righteousness.
   
   
   Dr. Wicklund, I don't know if you read your book reviews on Amazon.com, but thank you. Thank you for writing this book, and for doing what you have done and what you do. Thank you for never giving up. You are an inspiration, as is your daughter, and everyone who supported you.



3. I was engrossed with reading this book. It is well written and the story is powerful. Also, the details match the details of my life when I worked at an abortion clinic; it is accurate.
   
   Many thanks to Susan Wicklund for telling the world how her life was effected by her work.



4. This is a brave book by a courageous woman. As an Australian, I am not surprised by what she describes as I have become aware of the shameless and gutless tactics used by anti-abortion activists in the US. If it is their faith which drives them to make Susan's life hell, then they are certainly not Christians. The very encouraging thing about this book is Susan's determination not to be cowed by them and the little ways in which she discovers the latent support for her around her eg the man on the plane. As a man I find the over the top zealousness by the male anti-abortion activists almost laughable as they can have no concept of the pressures that may make a woman undertake an abortion.



5. I have always opposed abortion. In the 1970's, I stopped going to public protest functions. At that time, one of my fellows brought a side-by-side shotgun with him to the protests. At first, I thought it was just a sort of symbolic zeal. Later, I found that at least one barrel was loaded. This did not bother me, in itself. What bothered me was that the "organizers" were not willing to suppress or control that kind of misplaced zeal. So, I quit going to the protests. I didn't stop opposing abortion. I just stopped supporting bad organization. I don't support uncontrolled crazies, and they were already in evidence then.
   
   Dr. Wicklund has a right to produce a book, especially after decades of work in the area. However, the book is poorly planned. It is a sequence of personal recollections, a number of anecdotes put together, end to end. If the anecdotes were connected better by a common theme, it could be more revealing. As it is, it recounts the personal emotional excursions of a number of different people. There is no doubt that the emotions are real. They are relevant to an extent, but they aren't some sort of telling argument. Neither side of this particular debate has ever been plagued or inconvenienced by any excessive exercise of sanity.
   
   I have tried over many years to understand the views of the opposition, those who are pro-abortion and prefer to spin it as "pro-choice." To me, it has always seemed that the core argument of their position is convenience. It is convenient to be very sexually active and even to be sexually promiscuous, and abortion is a somewhat unpleasant but very practical version of birth control. So, it has seemed to me---perhaps incorrectly---that abortion is needed mainly as a practical convenience. Even Dr. Wicklund's own original experience was caused basically because she found it convenient or useful to live together with a man who was not her husband at a time of their lives when they had not established a reasonable economic basis. Was it necessary? They thought so. Maybe it was...maybe not.
   
   Is my view wrong? Undoubtedly it is simplistic. Undoubtedly the world itself has shades of gray that I am overlooking or too blind to see. The fact is that this book is written sufficiently badly that it gives me no more clue of the opposite view than I had before. I read the book because I was clueless, and I remain clueless afterward.
   
   People do have a choice, and it is often good to exercise the choice by using a zipper.
   
   Sic transit gloria mundi.

5 comments about All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs.

1. Elie Wiesel may be best known as the author of "Night", his harrowing and sparse account of his time spent in the concentration camps. His literary works have focused around the events that shaped Holocaust survivors and the questions those survivors had about their faith afterwards. His life's work is heavily imbued by those events early in his life, his novels vast testaments to making sure the world never forgets the atrocities man inflicted upon man.
   
   Yet there are many sides to this amazing man, which can often be forgotten when one dwells solely on his literary works. The first volume of Wiesel's memoirs, "All Rivers Run to the Sea", is a brilliant introduction and elucidation of the author. He relates quickly his early childhood and his time in the camps, but moves onto and focuses on his path after those events. As he forges a career as a journalist, meeting statesmen and celebrities, he finds himself and what causes he is willing to fight for. As a stateless person, his life is often difficult as he arouses suspicion, and he struggles constantly to make ends meet. Reading about his personal adventures, the reader sees how he is passionate, full of empathy, timid and captivating, a brilliant man with many stories to tell.
   
   For anyone who has read Wiesel's writings, the style of "All Rivers Run to the Sea" will be just as familiar: while it is divided into sections, his reminiscenses are as tangential as his fictional stories. Learning about his real-life adventures, readers can easily see how Wiesel has woven his experiences into all of his fictional works. The praises and accolades he has received are more than well deserved, for as long as he writes, his people will have a testimony to their past and to their faith.



2. This spectacular memoir of Elie Wiesel, the great author and voice of conscience, begins with his boyhood in the small Transylvanian village of Sighet.
   
   A pious child, with a great thirst for Jewish knowledge, a student of Torah and Talmud, and fascinated with the Kabbalah. Elie is swept into the Nazi ghetto and then death cams where he loses his parents and his beautiful little blond sister Tzipora, all of whom perished in the Nazi furnaces.
   
   He writes in memory of his losses:
   
   "If only I could recapture my father's wisdom, my little sister's innocent grace. If only I could recapture the rage of the resistance fighter, the suffering of the mystic dreamer, the solitude of the orphan in a sealed cattle car, the death of each and every one of them. If only I could step out of myself and merge with them".
   
   Wiesel writes of the prophecy told to his mother by the Wizhnitz Rabbi that her son would become a gadol b'Israel (a great man in Israel) but that she would not live to see it.
   
   Wiesel records some of the horrors he witnessed in the death camps such as live children being thrown into furnaces by the Nazis, and laments the inaction by the Allies to do anything about the extermination they knew was taking place of the Jews- saving Jews was not a priority for the Allies either.
   
   He mentions that most of the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis were intellectuals- not surprising in light of the fact hat most Jews who have thrown themselves into the campaign of hate against their fellow Jews in Israel.
   
   He writes about the liberation of the death camps by the Allies after the war, and how one of the youngest child survivors of Buchenwald was eight year old Israel Meir Lau, later to be the Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi of Israel. In his section of his travels around the world as a young man during the early 1950s he writes of his great compassion at the plight of poverty-stricken children in India.
   
   Wiesel records his life in a youth home for Jewish refugees in Paris and the fate of displaced Jews after World War II, his life as a journalist for Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot for whom he covered the Eichmann trial, civil rights struggles, the Six Day War, the 1968 Student insurrections in France, and other world events.
   
   He has always been greatly interested in philosophy and parapsychology and writes of his discussions with such great leaders as Golda Meir and David
   Ben-Gurion, as well as the greatest thinkers of the day. He writes of his great love for Israel and it's people for which he has been attacked by the hate-filled bigots of the International Left. He also took a strong stand for persecuted Soviet Jewry during the 1960s and 1970s. Elie Wiesel also writes of his great compassion for humanity as a whole, such as his pain at seeing the suffering of destitute children during his travels in India. But unlike certain Jews of the Left, he does not see a contradiction between this and his great love of Israel and the Jewish people- Ahavat Israel.
   
   He writes with great compassion, passion, anger, sadness and hope.
   In a plea for the plight of his own people today, especially the youth and children of Israel today targeted by terror and forces of genocide (such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Ahmadinejad regime- as well as all who are sympathetic to these anti-Jewish elements) he penned an open letter to President Bush stating: "Please remember that the maps on Arafat's uniform and in Palestinian children's textbooks show a Palestine encompassing not only all of the West Bank but all of Israel, while Palestinian leaders loudly proclaim that 'Palestine extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, from Rosh Hanikra (in the North) to Rafah (in Gaza). Please remember Danielle Shefi, a little girl in Israel. Danielle was five. When the murderers came, she hid under her bed. Palestinian gunmen found and killed her anyway. Think of all the other victims of terror in the Holy Land. With rare exceptions, the targets were young people, children and families. Please remember that Israel--having lost too many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers--desperately wants peace. It has learned to trust its enemies' threats more than the empty promises of 'neutral' governments".
   Elie Wiesel is a true voice of truth and conscience.



3. I found this a very compelling read, lasting over several readings. It's true the author did not stick tightly to chronological order, but anyone who has read his fiction knows his style tends to be very esoteric and rather free-floating (I personally do not care for his fiction, which I admit I do find to go over my head). However, as a reader, I certainly got a feel for emotions he felt throughout different experiences in his life. I found the last scene describing his emotions before and during his wedding to be really profound. It's true that there is a lot of Jewish content in this book, which may cause some of his analogies etc. to be less accessible to someone from a different background. However, for someone who wants to read a first-hand Holocaust experience without very strong graphic details, I do recommend it. (As a side note, just last week I actually attended a speech by Mr. Wiesel, and he is really a personable, funny, self-effacing and sweet man, not the really sad and somber person you might expect from his writings. I was surprised by this, pleasantly so!)



4. I would strongly recommend that all readers on Amazon read the review whose title caption is ' Remember'. It is far more extensive and far better than the small remarks I am about to post.
   Elie Weisel is the one human being who more than any other has helped the world understand the horror of the Shoah , the Holocaust the Nazi destruction of one - third of the Jewish people six million human beings.
   For this he should always have a place in the historical consciousness of both the Jewish people and mankind.
   His memoir is at times very moving .For those who know his other work and his masterpiece ' Night' there will be much familiar here, though here the story is enriched by greater detail.
   I find myself whenever I am reading Weisel unable to really judge in abstract or purely literary terms. His significance as a human being, as a witness as one who has spoken to me in my own life is so great that my feeling is closer to reverence than anything else.
   I read this book with the idea that any additional detail about his life and work, any additional understanding of his thought about Man's relation to G-d would be worthwhile. I read this work as I will read all his future works as an admiring student of a great teacher.
   May he be blessed by many more years of great creative work.



5. This is one of the times when I think we should be able to go higher than 5 stars. Elie Wiesel's All Rivers Run to the Sea gave us a more in-depth look to the concentration camp survivor. He really gives us a rich experience in weaving together the threads of his past, from his days in school to the horror in the concentration camps, right up to his days of being a journalist, and ending with him as a groom. You really get a feel for the type of person he is as well - a wonderful, compassionate, and intelligent man. If you've read Night already, you're definitely going to want to check this out.

5 comments about Alex: The Life of a Child.

1. I watched the excellent TV movie made of this book when I was around 8 and then read the book over and over, until it fell apart. It absolutely broke my heart. When I was in high school and I met my first husband, I found out that he had lost a stepbrother to cystic fibrosis, who made it to the age of 18 before he died. Years later, my first husband still had the things Scotty willed to him, a poster and all of his Weird Al tapes (the Make a Wish Foundation helped Scotty to meet Weird Al at a concert and got to go backstage, shortly before he died). His remaining stepbrother, shortly after we married, married a woman with three children. Her youngest, a daughter, had severe CF. We loved her dearly, and was devastated when she died, like Alex, at the age of 8.
   This is a heartbreaking book, but it's worth it. After you're done reading the book, donate money to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
   Another heartbreaking story on their site explains why they use roses on a lot of their promotional materials. A mother on the Board of Directors who had several kids with cystic fibrosis, was overheard by her toddler son on a phone call. He was too young to understand what she was saying, and too young to know he had a fatal disease, so he asked his mother what "sixty-five roses" meant. Many children now call CF "sixty five roses" and that's why the CF Foundation uses rose imagery.



2. excellent service. book received in excellent condition, just as described. would definitely order through bookrescue again.



3. As the father of an 8 year old daughter with CF (who even sorta looks like Alex), you can imagine that this is not an easy read for me. I read it once 8 years ago, when she was diagnosed, and it was bad....I have tried to re-read it again 8 years later and it's even harder to get through. Not a day goes by where I don't think about that I most likely will have to go thru what Frank did.
   I"m not sure i'll be able to handle it. My optimism that there will be a cure in time has dwindled to stark reality that it's not likely to happen soon enough. Thank you Frank for writing this, at least I know i'm not alone.



4. After supporting Cystic Fibrosis as one of my personal charities for many years, I saw this book in a used book store and bought it. I didn't read it for some time. In fact, it was after I met a family who had a son with CF. I became friends with him - and only a few months later, close to his 21st birthday, he was gone. Then I read the book.. I must say, this is a heartbreaker - but Alex is such an amazing young girl! Written from the experiences of a father watching this terrible disease take his little girl. I strongly recommend reading - and then reaching out to your local Cystic Fibrosis Chapter.



5. My daughter was diagnosed with CF 4 months ago at the age of 2.5 yrs. I was immediately drawn to books written from the parent perspective (it seems most are written by young adults who have it), and I first read "From a Taste of Salt" and then "Alex".
   
   I mostly loved this book; I love how well Deford delves into the psychological aspects (of ALL the family) of having a child in the house with this disease. I can easily picture in my dealings with my own daughter many of the conversations with Alex he relates.
   
   There are two things I disliked. One is that he really over-makes Alex to be a saint. Everyone says my daughter is so sweet and so good at taking her medicines and therapy and yadda yadda, but would you ever say the OPPOSITE to a parent with a sick child? My daughter is still a toddler and no saint, but Deford leaves out most of the day-to-day "normal" parts of her life that would show her regular humanity instead of her sainthood.
   
   Secondly, It became obvious at times that Deford was, unfortunately, projecting some of his own thoughts, feelings, and memories onto Alex's actions. I do not blame him for this one bit, considering the great devistation it is to lose a child and then try to write about it. But for some reason it really annoyed me.
   
   Overall an excellent book, and I recommend it to any parent with a newly diagnosed child struggling through the emotional and psychological steps of accepting CF. You find out that you are not alone in your many confusing thoughts. I only wish he had perhaps been a more religious man, and touched on the acceptance of this disease from God.

5 comments about Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science.

1. Atul Gawande gratefully takes the reader to the back of the OR, a place open for a few, yet intriguing for many. Dr. Gawande is extremely frank and poignant, as he describes actual cases from his own surgical practice. He admits that cutting someone open for the first time is hell, praises surgery which gives chance to obese people, wonders about doctor's intuition, and remains human in every case.
   
   As always, Atul Gawande is not just writing about medicine; this book reaches far beyond the realm of the operating room. He touches on the most complicated ethical questions of medicine and society as a whole. Gawande speaks of mistakes and our imperfect judgment; tackling the questions of good doctors gone bad along with malpractice claims and punishments. He makes the case for autopsy as a means of learning. He admits that medical students must practice on cadavers or animals in order to cut people open; all ethical questions are answered by means of vivid examples.
   
   For instance, in the 1980s the death rate from a particular surgery would be about 10%. When the new surgical treatment of heart pathology arose, surgeons started trying the novice. At that training period, the rate of children death from this particular intervention increased to 25% of cases. Sounds horrible? Yes, but after surgeons learned, the rate fell down to just a couple percent. Was it worth it? Sure, granted the number of lives saved in the long run. Never, granted now many kids died just due to surgeons' learning. Would any doctor let anyone practice on his own kid? Never. At the same time, learning is a necessary part of medical progress.
   
   Those questions dominate the book; Gawande ponders at the patient's right to choose, reminds us that doctors are human and prone to mistakes, reveals mysteries of complications, which are usually open only during the M&M - Mortality and Morbidity Conference behind the closed door. Gawande is not afraid to open the doors. Moreover, he is confident that openness is the only way to reduce the complications.
   
   I almost wanted to say the book is too idealistic, except it's written by a person whose profession is to think realistically. Great book!



2. The first part of the book is the typical medical error conversation - the system needs changes, but, instead, the last doctor to touch a patient is always ultimately responsible. The last two sections of the book are full of interesting patient stories and antecdotes, leaving the reader with a sense of "why do I pay so much for services that are not consistent and not scientifically proven?" Gawande does an excellent job pointing out some of the uncertaintaties of medicine and some of the major health disparities and inequalities - the poor are usually the ones that are used as training tools for interns and residents, and receive subpar-care compared to the well-insured.
   
   A very easy and quick read.



3. I just couldn't finish this book! I thought it would be better--but as I am reading the words they are more and more unfamiliar. I don't want to read a book where you spend more than 3/4 of the time looking up the words!



4. An amazing thriller...
   
   Dr.Atul's superb portrayal of finest qualities of a doctor, yet the limitations of an individual, their weekness,strengths, system flaws etc with vivid examples of real life cases makes "Complications" the best medical book I'v ever read.It's not the content of the book alone that deserves appreciation, it's also the flow of words that blend with the topic.
   
   Certainly the pinnacle of the book is the story of Joseph Lazaroff, Atul's Anguish depicting the finest of human character and also the professionalism of a doctor, also his questions behind the ethics of "absolute insane rights of patient's expression". I felt a pain in the heart for that "unknown soul" ( a gist of that chapter is below)
   
   Chapter : Whose body is it Anyway :
   ...I turned the ventilator off, and the suddenly the room was quiet .His breathing slowed ...Joseph Lazaroff had died.But Knowing how much Lazaroff had dreaded dying the way he died....
   
   Chapter : Education of a Knife:
   I said to the patient that there were "slight risks" involved.And the disasters weighed on my mind: the woman who had died from massive bleeding, the man who had to have a chest opened, the man who had a cardiac arrests.I said nothing of such things when I asked my patient's permission to do this
   
   Chapter : When Doctors Make Mistakes:
   At 2 A.M on a crisp friday in winter a few years agao, I was in sterile gown , pulling a teenage knifing victim's abdomen open, when my pager sounded "code trauma, three minutes"
   
   Chapter : When Good doctor's Go bad:
   Before the license of Dr.Goodman was taken away, he was a highly respected and sought after surgeon...he could do some of the best, most brilliant work around....In one case , he put the wrong-size screw into a patient's ankle,another case when he refused to do hip replacement. For the last several years, he was the defendent of a stream of malpractice suits.
   
   Chapter : The Man Who Cannot stop Eating :
   ...He had to let his legs apart to let his abdomen sag between them. He cannot lie down and breath properly because of excess fat in the tongue and upper airway. He had to sleep in the recliner and every thirty minutes or so , he would wake up asphyxating, He could no longer stand up to urinate, he had to shower after moving his bowels to get clean
   
   A Must Read book...Afterall, someday you might be an example in his future books!



5. I find this book which has gotten such rave reviews disappointing. Dr. Gawande addresses a number of issues which are pertinent to surgical practice. However,I found the book to be superficial and lacking of "heart".
   
   I will elicudate. Dr. Gawande states frequently that surgeons slash their way into a patient.I suspect that this is for dramatic effect.There are other examples of this such as the description of an autopsy.He tones it down later.He treds lightly on the fact that doctors don't want to own their mistakes which is why there is no improvement in medical care over 20 years ago despite huge advances in both technology and costs.
   
   The only Surgeon I have ever known who "slashed" his way into a patient ended up losing his privileges...thank God but it took many years and a yeoman's effort and those who spoke up were alienated and shunned. It was not as simple as is portrayed in this book.I do laud him for bringing up the "good doctors going bad" issue. It is a huge problem and bad doctors are often covered for years and years while patients are repetitively injured. It is also very harmful to the doctor who is creating the problem. The cost of this problem to patients, hospitals and society is staggering.
   
   I looked up the reference that computers were better than doctors at diagnosis. It is not about medical diagnosis, it was about psychologists' diagnosis. The second article was from 1954...A bit dated. before the computer era.
   
   I laud him for the courage in mentioning his screwed up tracheostomy attempt. There are numerous methods for both intubation and percutanous guided tracheostomy techniques that have been available for 20 years. I have to wonder why he was unaware of these. The technique that he describes for subclavian vein cathethers is also not as safe as other methods which use a small guage finding needle. I have to wonder why 20-30 years after these problems were identified that this young doctor was not being instructed in these techniques.
   
   His chapter on bariatric surgery is notable for his mentioning of the commercialization of medicine an increasingly dangerous trend is appropriate. At this point bariatric surgery has been shown to be helpful for a large number of patients, but without question medicine has been commercialized.
   
   His section on uncertainty is the best part of this book. He saved the best for last.
   
   Nonetheless, I find his "laissez-faire" attitude to these problems even more worrisome.I find little actual feeling that he cared about his patients in this book. This is not surprising as it pervades medicine today.
   
   I haven't found this book to be a thriller.It lacks depth of character. If he had connected with us and his patients emotionally I believe that it would have been a much more powerful work.

5 comments about I'll Carry the Fork! Recovering a Life After Brain Injury.

1. My son received a severe brain injury in a car accident almost two years ago. He has made a remarkable recovery. However although I ask him how he feels he can't always tell me, says " I just want to be back to normal" I have really wanted to know exactly what goes on in their brain during the recovery -which of course is on going. This book was just delightful. I loved Kara's honest comments and the way she expressed her feelings. My son does not want to read it but my daughter-in-law does.
   I have to say though, for all of you parents out there who's child has been diagnosed with a severe brain injury, don't despair, Kara's mild brain injury seems a lot more severe in her recovery than my son's!
   Thank you Kara for a wonderful insight into the feelings of a brain injured person. Best of luck for a continued recovery.
   Judy Knott
   Auckland
   New Zealand



2. A great read for a survivor or family member of TBI. Slightly larger print and easy to follow story line. This book puts you in touch with the TRUELY important things in life. Showing some of possitive and humorious bumps in her new learning curve keeps this book from reading like a text book. Wow does it feel better knowing that others share similar experincies.
   I have purchased several of these, one for my daughter, and a couple for friends to help them understand me now.
   If you ever get the chance to meet Kara DO IT, she is uplifting to speak with.



3. A delightful book which takes the author from a tragedy and life change to making her new life the best it can be. A wonderful message for those of us having a family member who is a recent traumatic brain injury survivor. It is written with humor but with a valuable message. The chapters are short and written in a manner our TBI survivor is able to read and comprehend it. Thank you for this book.



4. A delightful book which takes the author from a tragedy and life change to making her new life the best it can be. A wonderful message for those of us having a family member who is a recent traumatic brain injury survivor. It is written with humor but with a valuable message. The chapters are short and written in a manner our TBI survivor is able to read and comprehend it. Thank you for this book.



5. I never fully understood my dad's head injury, but after reading this humorous story of Kara it made me realize the frustrating effects of brain injury. Just a great book over-all and written on the level of a sixth grader, so it makes it an easy read.

5 comments about Maimonides (Jewish Encounters).

1. Maimonidies' two biggest contributions to civilization were his religious writings, and medical practice. As author Sherwin Nuland himself points out, Maimonidies' truest, lasting legacy are his religious writings. Yet probably because he himself is a doctor, Sherwin Nuland emphasizes the medical Maimonidies at the expense of not giving the religious Maimonidies his proper due. When reading this book, Maimonidies sounded like quite an ordinary man, nothing special, and the truth is, as a doctor he was nothing special. Yet in religious circles, he is a giant. This specialness of Maimonidies was lost in this short biography of this great man.



2. The most interesting parts of this book focus on Maimonides the physician (as opposed to Maimonides the religious leader, where Nuland's discussion is a bit too sparse here and there). Maimonides (known to most Jews as Rambam) did not develop new medical knowledge, but wrote ten books synthesizing existing medical knowledge in a clear and concise way, and even occasionally criticizing the Greco-Roman masters whose works dominated medieval medicine. By the low standards of the Middle Ages, this passed for genius.
   
   Nuland links Rambam's religious and medical careers by pointing out that in both areas, Rambam focused heavily on codifying existing knowledge in ways that would be easy for the public to use.
   
   Nuland also engages in interesting speculation about a variety of other issues, including:
   
   1. Why were Jews so likely to be doctors in the Middle Ages? Nuland asserts that (a) Christians were uninterested in medicine because they were more ascetic, (b) because priests could not take employment as doctors, the Christian talent pool for medicine was artificially diminished and (c) because Jews' wealth could easily be taken away, Jews had a strong incentive to seek portable skills (as opposed to investing in fixed assets such as land).
   
   2. Why was Rambam so uninterested in accommodating or discussing competing religious views? Nuland speculates that because of Judaism's dire condition in those days (beset in persecution in some places and the temptation of assimilation into Islam in more tolerant places) Rambam may have felt the need to "circle the wagons" by encouraging as much uniformity as possible.
   
   3. Why did Rambam (who generally opposed Messianic speculation) suggest in his letter to Yemenite Jews that prophecy might return in 1216? Nuland suggests that Rambam may have been trying to defang Messianic fever by setting a date so far in advance that he could not be disproven during his lifetime.



3. Nuland has accomplished the difficult task of summarizing Maimonides' complex writings in a way that is accessible to the common reader. Nuland's style is clear and concise, and he obviously admires Maimonides as a sort of Renaissance man before the Renaissance. It is true that the book gives considerable attention to Maimonides' life as a physician, but as someone who has dipped a bit into Maimonides' writings on Jewish law and thought but knew little of his place in medical history, I didn't see that as a problem. In fact, I found that that made this book even more enlightening.
   
   I could have used more discussion of the Guide to the Perplexed, however, beyond the notions that the book is difficult and that some see it as a hidden confession by Maimonides of his lack of belief (an unlikely hypothesis). The Guide is an extraordinarily fascinating book, from all I understand, and Nuland does not do it justice.



4. it shows you right way about life
   i think it is possible to adopt it to today.
   it was very interesting book for me.
   it is the kind of book that i always enjoy reading



5. Dr. Nuland, himself a Jewish physician, was understandably reluctant to engage in doing the biography of perhaps the ultimate Jewish physician of all time: Moses Ben Maimon also referred to as Rambam or Maimonides.
   
   His reluctance was understandable on a number of levels. First, Maimonides was of pronounced expertise in the healing arts. Not only the author of ten medical books, he had through dint of skill managed to elevate himself to being court physician at the court of Saladin.
   
   Second, for Jewish thought (and derivatively for western thought itself) Maimonides was significant for his recognition of and attempt to deal with the conflict between the canonized precepts of faith and the unanswered questions of science. His "Guide for the Perplexed" itself perplexing is an attempt in some ways an attempt at striking a balance.
   
   However, in both ways Nuland managed to briefly make the material accessible to the reader.
   
   And significantly also, Nuland managed to connect the reader with Maimonides humanity...his early difficulties with learning, his grief at the loss of his brother and his joy in parenthood.
   
   In this way, Nuland managed to create and even more iconic figure because rather than putting him a pedistal, Nuland put Maimonides right next to you...all the more human and therefore all the more relevant.

5 comments about Sick Girl.

1. I found this a compelling and provocative story. Silverstein never flinches when telling of her journey from type-A law student to a young woman ruled by a failing heart, and she gives voice to the anger people whose bodies fail them invariably feel. I gave the book to my daughter-in-law, a cardiac nurse, who passed it around to her colleagues. They all said Silverstein's story gave them insights into their patients they could not have had without it.



2. I'm kind of shocked at all the negativity being hurled at Amy Silverstein. What did she do but share her true feelings? Who are we to judge her personal growth arc and determine that she "should" be over her resentment by now? I can only assume that most who view her so harshly have their original hearts? Thought so. Might you then be willing to accept that you don't in fact know how she should be feeling by now?
   
   I, for one, was willing to listen to Amy with an open mind. Not only did I learn a lot of fascinating details about transplant surgery, it also helped me appreciate anew my own health, however imperfect. Mostly, though, "Sick Girl" is simply a gripping read from start to finish. The way I judge a book's worth is simple: how eager am I to return to it? This one scored off the charts on that score -- I couldn't wait to pick up where I left off each day. I hope Ms Silverstein writes another book; she's very talented.
   
   If you're reading these reviews, Amy, forgive my fellow readers for doing exactly what you feared your friends and acquaintances might do if you dared to slip off the happy mask: turn away from the ugly reality. Rest assured not all readers feel that way. Thank you for telling your story.



3. I just finished this book yesterday. What an irritating book.
   
   There were some interesting details about heart transplants... For example, one's nerves not being connected to the transplanted heart so that one would feel the effects of walking up hill or being frightened suddenly, minutes after the exercise/event, etc.
   
   I do undertand this woman's anger and her depression. Well, maybe...I get the feeling no-one is capable of understanding this woman, except for her cardboard saintly husband, and even he gets slammed. The opening chapter and closing chapter seemed deceitful. I never really thought she'd choose not to take her medicine and give up completely. It seemed like an attention grabbing literary device.
   
   It is never explained why she thought one lady was laughing at her (or if she indeed was laughing at her) or how Ellen's child was doing (it seemed like her character was just inserted to show that adopting a child was a better choice) or why her father would jump out of a car in the middle of this lady's crisis. Had her father 'had it' with her life long histrionics?
   
   Irritating, irritating book. The author herself got in the way of a good book.



4. I was intrigued by the lack of insight or growth experienced through Amy's ordeal. The constant self pity and victim mentality made a well written informative book very hard to read.
   
   I have dealt with chronic illness for over twenty years, and have mourned the loss of "normal" functioning. I have dealt with abusive doctors, people and family who have judged me, not understood and ignored it all. I understand what it is like to lose one's health at such an early age, and I only have empathy for Amy.
   I was dumbfounded though that her book only focused on the dark side of her experience. The loss of health at such a young age is devastating, yet can also open doors for true growth and inner healing. "Sick Girl" only focuses on the "sick girl".
   
   I had read an article with Amy, where she expressed thankfulness for her life. If this is true, she does not express any of these feelings in her book. This is Amy's story, and she can only tell her story the way she sees it.
   
   The picture on the cover, showing her scar with the title "sick Girl " over it, says it all. This book is overflowing with victim consciousness and self pity. I know that through what Amy did live through and continues to live through, she is anything but the victim she portrays herself to be. She is a strong, courageous powerful woman. I wish perhaps that she could see herself that way.
   
   A very informative, well written book about transplants. I would not recommend it as an inspirational book.



5. I don't know where to begin with this book. On the plus side, it was very difficult to put down. I read it in no time at all. It was compelling and suspenseful. I liked learning about heart illnesses, the treatment available for them, and the complications of these treatments.
   
   But I found myself absolutely disgusted with the author. Because she had a heart transplant, it took me awhile to even register my antipathy towards Amy. I was worried that I wasn't being fair to her and that I just didn't understand major illnesses. At some point, though, I've got to call a spade a spade. There is absolutely no excuse for the behavior she exhibited throughout her illness. And there's no excuse for the unbelievable whining she does throughout this book.
   
   If Amy's account is to be believed, she was incredibly unfair to her doctors. She blamed them for things they couldn't control. In some cases, she hated them just for doing their job. A choice sample: "But I can tell you, when you try to push this anger thing on me it just makes you look like a big idiot--standing there in your ivory tower, telling me what I feel. Don't kid yourself" (pg. 108). Here, Amy is chewing out an apparently well-meaning psychiatrist who's been trying to help her cope. She makes fun of his appearance, too. Some people might admire this "spunkiness" and "spirit." I don't--I think it's childish. Wallowing in her self-pity, Amy just refuses to put herself in other people's shoes. She even has trouble empathizing with her husband, Scott. It's all about her and her illness. If you're thinking about buying this book, you'd better prepare yourself for a ton of this.
   
   When Amy describes one of her first doctor's visits at the the beginning of the book, she recognizes that she's being immature. "My accumulated years began to fall away from me one by one until I landed in the safe haven of a ten-year-old girl--and a bratty one at that" (pgs. 28-29). What she doesn't seem to realize is that she remains a brat for the rest of the book. You can even tell in the language she uses to describe herself. Yes, yes, we know it's unfair that you got sick at twenty-four. The whining gets old after awhile. I kept hoping she would toughen up, but she never did.
   
   Something for the theologically minded: Amy describes one of her near-death experiences in a way that's supposed to disprove the whole idea of heaven. She says there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Yet she gets very preachy about the "true love" between her and her husband. It's too syrupy-sweet in the midst of her postmodern rantings. In short, she thinks she has the authority to deny God while affirming true love. She tries to shove her views onto the reader. I did not appreciate it. Just because she has a heart transplant, she's supposed to be our greatest expert on the universe?
   
   In short, the front cover is a very good indicator of this book's content. The cover photo seems to be saying, "Look. I've been through a heart transplant. That makes me better than everyone else. Don't you feel sorry for me? And don't you dare judge me. You don't know how it feels to have a scar like this." If you don't enjoy that perspective, steer clear. I like getting angry when I read, but not everyone does. I would NOT recommend this book to anybody facing a health crisis. Amy is suicidal and thinks killing herself is a viable option.

5 comments about What Patients Taught Me: A Medical Student's Journey.

1. In "What Patients Taught Me," author Audrey Young, M.D. describes her path in the study of medicine. Growing up in a comfortable Seattle household, she became interested in socioeconomic justice. As an undergrad at Berkeley she "wanted to be an urban doctor for neglected populations."
   
   She chose the University of Washington Medical School, an institution with a " ... dispersed ... program to train medical students from the Pacific Northwest to practice as rural doctors." Under this program, called WWAMI for its presence in Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho, Young's medical school rotations provided an unusual amount of patient contact and responsibility.
   
   It was her choice to spend the first year in a Seattle rotation, where she had limited patient contact while taking a heavy academic load. The following summer she began her rural training in a family practice clinic in Bethel, Alaska, where huge distances and inaccessibility of care often led to delayed treatment.
   
   Here on the tundra, as Young learned to present a case in pertinent bullet points, she began to see the context in which patients live their lives. From a healthy youngster with a cold, to a mother with a fulminating post-partum infection, to a forty-year-old mechanic with tuberculosis, each patient was so much more than symptoms and test results.
   
   After Alaska, Young's rotations were a mix of urban and rural. Seattle for surgery and psychiatry; Spokane for obstetrics; Pocatello, Idaho for pediatrics; back to Seattle for internal medicine where she began to long for the autonomy and open spaces of more rural rotations.
   
   At the end of her third year Young took a difficult rotation in Swaziland, in eastern Africa. This third-world country was overrun with HIV and suffered acutely from interruptions to the supply chain due to war, poverty and political ideology.
   
   What Patients Taught Me: A Medical Student's Journey is illustrated with story after story of patients and their diseases and social context. This is the lesson Audrey Young shares with us -- "that a doctor should understand how people live." She tells her own story beautifully, and it's an inspiring story regardless of the reader's field of interest. I would paraphrase her life lesson and say that in all our interactions, any person should strive for that same understanding.
   
   There is a lot of medical detail in this memoir, but if that field is within your area of competency as a reader, I recommend this book to you.
   
   Linda Bulger, 2008



2. If you are in the medical field you need to read this book. It's great to see someone who is in the medical field for the people and not the money.
   
   If you don't pick something up from this book as to how to handle your patients, I'd be real surprised.



3. After reading the author's accounts of rural medicine, I've begun to strongly consider applying for a rural-based residency upon completion of medical school.
   
   Her tone isn't as pompous as some other similar books I've read. She's very down to earth, and doesn't try to make herself sound impressive by using jargon and fancy words. I've already recommended it for friends who are looking into going into medicine. A friend gave this book to me as a gift after reading it, and I plan on doing the same!



4. It was very thoughtfully written.
   
   It was a topic of great interest to me.
   
   The evolution of her insight into her patients was craftfully presented.
   
   My only negative comment concerns the less than excellent level of literary skill.



5. When one conceives of the typical American medical school student's training one usually envisions students learning core clinical sciences the first two years and then proceeding on to rotations in major, large intercity hospitals. Yet, a quick glance at the inside jacket of this personal narrative mentions places like Bethel, Alaska and South Africa - not typical locales where one would expect to see a budding young physician. The singular uniqueness of the experience initially captures one's attention and then the succinct, yet poignant prologue fully captivates one's curiosity. Audrey Young brings a clairvoyant quality to her writing and seems to realize her own experience's importance in the midst of the vastness of modern medicine. She has found one thing that unifies medicine - the patient's story - and simultaneously is cognizant of its decline. Young best describes what attracts readers to the book by saying, "Patients teach things that the wisest and most revered physicians cannot, and their lessons are in this book." (x) These lessons are the defining topics of Dr. Young's personal memoir, What Patients Taught Me.
   Audrey Young describes her experiences as a developing physician enrolled at University of Washington Medical School. In preparation for medical school and the goal of becoming a practicing physician in the future, Young envisions herself as an urban doctor working in a clinic to provide much needed medical assistance to the indigent and underprivileged. After trudging through her first year of medical school, settling "into the idea that doctoring meant fixing bodies with science", and considering going to practice rural medicine, Young finally enrolls into a summer experience in the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho) program. (10) The maturing medical student ventures first to Bethel, Alaska where she learns from the Yupik people the value of doctoring as caring for one's patients and living alongside one's patients as not only caretakers but neighbors as well. It is in Bethel that Young first realizes that "telling the story was the crucial first step in taking care of a patient" - a lesson that motivates all subsequent interactions and provides the framework for her memoir. (29) She concludes her experience in Bethel without knowing the outcome of a patient suspected to have either curable tuberculosis or malignant cancer - she never finds out.
   Upon return returning to embark upon her second year of medical school, Young "gradually...began to function like a classroom student again and devolved into a primitive machine that ate textbooks and syllabi and spit out answers on multiple-choice exams." (39) Such harsh criticism of the traditional, rigid educational structure of lecture pervades Dr. Young's book, and instructs the reader of the dangers of making medicine simply an inhuman science without a personal component to the learning. In Spokane, she returns to a different type of classroom where her patients established the syllabi and constantly made additions and revisions. On her obstetrics rotations, Audrey Young witnesses difficult labors, complicated pregnancies, and tragic endings with one baby dying immediately after the mother held the baby born without a fully developed nervous system. Young learns to overcome her feelings of judgment of pregnant teenagers and renews her duty to care for those in need in spite of witnessing how not even the best doctors could always convince their patients to help themselves.
   In the next chapter of Dr. Young's seemingly unending journey, she endeavors to Pocatello, Idaho where she completes her pediatrics rotation. In this segment of her training, Young finds herself persistently in doubt - of her motivations, her capabilities, and her desire to become a physician - but she is able to find consolation in the example set by one caring resident, Jon. Of him she writes, "I felt a surge of gratitude again for how much he'd contributed towards my clinical skills and for the glimpse he'd given me into a young physician's soul. We had been through a chapter together." (110-111) In Missoula, Montana on her next rotation these clinical skills would prove defenseless against "the capricious powers of the human body to act as it wished, regardless of what the mind hoped for." (125) Martha, a patient who had previously recovered well enough to be taken off a ventilator, quickly sinks into a coma after being resuscitated and then dies almost too quickly for any of her relatives to bid her farewell. John, another of Young's patients, decides to live a fuller life without chemotherapy, spending his time riding on top of horses instead of gurneys.
   It is here where she learns from her patients valuable lessons such as the difficulty involved in adhering to an extensive drug regimen, the suffering of being misdiagnosed and treated improperly, and the vulnerability of making such important decisions as a physician. Young learns from her own inadequacy on a standardized test that she herself may make many mistakes, and that someday others might not be able to prevent her mistakes from harming her patients.
   Dr. Young's next journey leads her to practice medicine in Swaziland in South Africa in an impoverished community health clinic. Here in Africa Young witnesses the inadequacy of her clinic; this clinic is a healthcare facility that does not even have penicillin to treat simple infections. In spite of a close-call with an accidental needle-stick after taking abdominal fluid from an HIV-infected patient, Audrey Young still renews her devotion to medicine and carries on by taking care of patients and working through difficult circumstances. Young recalls, "I convinced myself that to feel and to act could be entirely unrelated things, but I decided that a doctor who sees suffering must act, rejecting the choice of not acting, even when futility and risk run high." (193) The time spent in Africa, while a vastly divergent setting, still provides Young and the reader with fundamental lessons about the devoted care that an exemplary physician must impart upon his or her patients.
   After returning to the United States, she continues her commitment to rural medicine by pursuing a rural internal medicine residency. She finds her niche practicing in a Seattle clinic for the indigent and teaching medical students how to interact with patients. From her writings, one can learn numerous valuable lessons from her diverse experiences. Dr. Young promotes an awareness of a different type of medicine - the type of medicine that the reader witnesses in Young's travels is not the dramatic, exciting medicine that one might see on television. It is also not the technology-driven medicine that one might envision as the future of medicine. What the reader finds in Young's account is simple patient and physician interaction. Young conveys this important message by reiterating, "I admired many of my teaching physicians as brilliant scientists and intellectuals, and for a time fancied myself in that vein. But WWAMI had imprinted upon me that doctors take care of patients, and in the end, I could not imagine a lifetime of doctoring without patients at the center." (208, emphasis added)
   Dr. Young weaves an elaborate tapestry out her patients' colorful stories - they are stories of nothing short of what it means to be human. The author does not veil the patients' suffering in medical terminology or vapid euphemisms; the reader instead discovers a potent, passionate account of what physicians might be missing by not listening to patients' stories beyond the clinical manifestations of disease. The first, primary lesson of this narrative informs the reader that "almost everything important comes from the patient's story." (212) The reader witnesses the consequences of failure to take note of the patient's story in the case of Carla, whose first doctor missed the diagnosis of Crohn's disease. From this encompassing lesson, the reader also learns that medicine and health should not simply concern itself with simple clinical symptoms and treatments, but should include consideration of the patient's and the family's more fundamental needs as emotional beings. John's decision to end chemotherapy to live out his last remaining days happily and the physician's respect of this decision eloquently demonstrates the importance of medicine extending beyond physiological considerations.
   Moreover, one of the perhaps more important messages that the reader can derive from Dr. Young's What Patients Taught Me is that medicine is fallible and that physicians cannot completely conquer human suffering. It is this humanly flawed aspect of medicine that makes it such an emotional experience to be a physician - to have the power to make a positive impact many times, but to lack any power against disease and illness at other times. Young concludes this statement best when she writes, "Sometimes I enter a story and find I can bring a little light and relief to human suffering." (214)

5 comments about Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface.

1. This book was difficult to read but I recognized so much of my own experience in Dr Manning's writing. She gives and incredible insight into the suffering of depression. I feel like giving this book to all my family members and friends to read so that I can stop hearing annoying "just snap out of it" type of advices.
   It is impossible to appreciate what suffering from manic depression means unless you've been there, a fact that you can see when reading some of the reviews posted here.



2. Having dealt with depression, I found this book (true story) very insightful. Those who haven't dealth with it personally, or those who have someone going through depression should really read this book. It's inside the mind of an older women with severe depression. Interesting, informative, and truthful. A must read!



3. This is a journey through the major depression that takes hold of a therapist and professor. In this book, Manning shares her insightful, painfully honest and often humorous journal entries and provides a powerful and personal look at depression. (This is also a great book for anyone who is interested in hearing a positive perspective on ECT.)



4. I bought this book several years ago and have read it about five times by now. This time I read it after suffering through the self-indulgent whining of Elizabeth Wurtzel in Prozac Nation. Reading Undercurrents right afterwards really showed me - once again - the merits of this book. Martha Manning write honestly, she reveals how much she suffers from her depression without ever descending into self-pity. This alone is a remarkable achievement. In addition, she manages to combine the sad passages with some wry humor which is never out of place, but enriches the reading experience. This book is a wonderful and informative account of depression and also helps to shows the background of ECT - while ECT was a horrifying experience for Ms. Manning, she shows how much the treatment helped her. This is a book I highly recommend to anyone suffering from depression or wanting to know more about depression. It is definitely the best first-hand account about this illness that I ever read.



5. Margaret does an incredible job in this book of truly expressing just how it really feels and the true thoughts of someone who has been depressed for a fairly long period of time. She writes in a way that is true, honest, and humorous.