A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology

A stirring collection of stories, poems, and essays on all aspects of the medical profession, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the "Children of Crisis" series. A century of unprecedented scientific advances has left the medical profession facing profound ethical and procedural crises, as doctors, nurses, hospice workers, psychiatrists, and others involved in the healing arts struggle to keep up with the science while staying true to the humanitarian goals at the heart of their work. A Life in Medicine explores questions such as, "What is a 'small, good thing' in medicine?" "Can patients be instruments of grace?" and "How does one muster one's compassion for (so-called) 'difficult' patients?," bringing together provocative and moving writing on the moral and ethical lives of physicians, nurses, and psychiatrists, and injecting a dose of contemporary reality into a centuries-old discussion. The book is organized around the central themes of altruism, knowledge, skill, and duty, and contributors include well-known writers, doctors, nurses, practitioners, and patients, who address life and death, cancer and AIDS, seizures and psychosis, advocacy and anatomy, from both ends of the stethoscope.

With stories by: Raymond Carver • Anton Chekhov • Shusaku Endo • Anne Fadiman • Laurie Moore • William Carlos Williams

Poems by: • Hart Crane • Walt Whitman • Raymond Carver

And essays by: • Wendell Berry • Robert Coles • Robert Jay Lifton • Sara Lawrence Lightfoot • Audre Lorde • Lewis Thomas • Albert Schweitzer • Terry Tempest Williams

and others.