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SLOW MEDICINE

Name: SLOW MEDICINE
Author: Victoria Sweet
ISBN: 978-1-59463-359-1

THE WAY TO HEALING

by Victoria Sweet ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2017

Though Sweet’s firm belief that Slow Medicine is necessary in today’s high-tech world will strike some as impractical, the...

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A doctor dissatisfied with the modern delivery of health care details how she developed her ideas about how medicine should be practiced.

Sweet (Medicine/Univ. of California, San Francisco; God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine, 2012), a physician, historian, and master storyteller, has provided an autobiographical prequel to God’s Hotel, recounting her years in training to become a doctor and her early experiences treating patients. The moments she highlights here are those that revealed some aspect of what she calls Slow Medicine. Sometimes, it involves nurses and doctors showing calmness, confidence, expertise, and a personal touch; sometimes, it is patients whose treatments provide revelatory moments. Sweet recalls scenes from years ago in full detail, describing settings, physical appearances, and lengthy conversations. These personal scenes, which constitute the bulk of the book, make for a highly readable narrative. While the author appreciates the world of modern “Fast Medicine,” with its logic, methods, and technology, she argues that its view of the body as a machine to be fixed would benefit from a consideration of the body as a garden to be tended. Taking time out from clinical work, Sweet studied other medical systems—e.g., ayurvedic, Chinese, folk—and especially the writings of Medieval nun Hildegard of Bingen. The author learned Latin so she could read her work in the original, and it is from her that Sweet takes the concept of viriditas, the healing power of nature. The role of the physician, she writes, is to nourish this power, to remove what is in the way, to see the whole patient in her environment, and to think deeply about her life and figure out what is wrong and what can be changed.

Though Sweet’s firm belief that Slow Medicine is necessary in today’s high-tech world will strike some as impractical, the sick will take comfort in this physician’s warm, personal, knowledgeable approach.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-59463-359-1

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.