In the spirit of Oliver Sacks and the inspiration for the NBC drama New Amsterdam, this intensely involving memoir from a Medical Director of Bellevue Hospital looks poignantly at patients' lives and highlights the complex mind-body connection.
Using the plights of twelve very different patients--from dignitaries at the nearby UN, to supermax prisoners at Riker's Island, to illegal immigrants, and Wall Street tycoons--Dr. Eric Manheimer "offers far more than remarkable medical dramas: he blends each patient's personal experiences with their social implications" (Publishers Weekly).
Manheimer is not only the medical director of the country's oldest public hospital, but he is also a patient. As the book unfolds, the narrator is diagnosed with cancer, and he is forced to wrestle with the end of his own life even as he struggles to save the lives of others.
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“Far more than an on-the-spot account of the oldest public hospital in America. Instead, Dr. Eric Manheimer provides us with something even more meaningful. By tracing the stories of twelve very different patients, he illuminates seldom-seen connections between medical diseases and societal issues, including income disparity, immigration, mental illness, teenage depression, gang violence, and knowledge of health issues. Health care has never seemed more immediate.”
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Barnes & Noble, editorial review