Patient by Patient: Lessons in Love, Loss, Hope and Healing from a Doctor's Practice, by Emily Transue

I really, really liked Patient by Patient... . Emily Transue has managed to write a book about her practice that is both human and absorbing. Her conversational style of writing makes it clear that she honestly cares about her patients, and she made me care about them as well. I held my breath waiting to read outcomes of tests, and cried with her when she lost patients. Her words had made me feel as though I knew these people, too.

There were necessarily several stories of loss encompassed in this memoir, both practical and personal. Transue's father, who suffers from and finally succumbs to brain damange caused by a cancer treatment years before, as well as his parents, who are in their nineties, are the main focus of Transue's family life, and their various conditions and outcomes weave in and out through her writing and her care for her patients, reminding readers that doctors are, in fact, people. Her explaination of the billing nightmare that doctors experience, as well as the hours they work, made me understand my some of my own experiences in doctor's offices a little bit better, but she also made me see what kind of care is really out there, if we can find it. She is obviously an amazing person, and has definitely inherited the 'wonderful storyteller' gene from her grandmother.

Rating: five out of five stars - wonderful