On this edition of STMM, we're talking about what it's like to work in a public hospital, also known as a safety-net hospital. These are medical facilities where everyone is treated -- including those without insurance, those who are undocumented immigrants, and those who've been turned away by various other hospitals, clinics, and doctors. In his book, "The People's Hospital," Houston-based physician and writer Ricardo Nuila depicts five uninsured Houstonians and their experiences at a hospital where care comes first and foremost, always. Per a starred review in Kirkus: "A doctor and professor of medicine adds personal texture to one of the most divisive issues of our time.... Nuila's complete, deeply personal dedication to his content and his exceptional command of prose allow him to translate the mercy, authority, and sense of urgency that patients want at their bedsides and citizens want in policy debates. In the author's hands, Ben Taub Hospital becomes a beacon of light that brings health care back to the realm of the personal, resisting the failures of partisan imagination and offering space for pioneering medicine and personal triumph. A compassionate, engrossing story of frustrated hopes and unlikely victories in American health care."
"The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine"
