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"Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey Through Constraints and Creativity in the ER"

Aired on Monday, September 12th.
Aired on Monday, September 12th.

"In this collection of brief, touching essays, an emergency room doctor presents poignant stories about disease and loneliness and argues that medical professionals are 'stewards' of their patients' stories, morally obligated to look beyond data and tests." -- The New York Times Book Review

Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Jay Baruch, a practicing emergency room physician who's also a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Brown University. He joins us to discuss his new book, a collection of essays titled "Tornado of Life." It's a work that shows how empathy, creativity, imagination, and communication are effectively the cornerstones of clinical care. To be a good ER doc, this book seems to argue, is to be a careful and constant listener to patients' stories. Per Publishers Weekly: "ER physician Baruch recounts in this unflinching essay collection the professional challenges he's encountered, both pre-Covid and from the worst of the pandemic.... Baruch has a knack for narrative and writes in a refined prose, and many entries, such as two concerning domestic violence victims who won't say that they're in danger, are tough to forget."

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