Last Half Hour of the Day: Stories and Essays That Have Inspired Physicians Book

Introduction xiii Section 1 Achievements Slave Doctors...Free Doctors Plato 3 from Utopia Thomas More 4 from Letter to Dr. Edward Jenner Thomas Jefferson 5 from The Evolution of Modern Medicine William Osler 6 from Les Miserables Victor Hugo 8 from The Story of San Michele Axel Munthe 10 Last Words J.P. Featherstone 13 from Arrowsmith Sinclair Lewis 29 Towards the Splendid City Pablo Neruda 31 Section 2 Discoveries Brute Richard Selzer 41 Laundry Susan Onthank Mates 45 A Great Man Frank O'Connor 50 from Life On The Mississippi Mark Twain 59 Death in the Open Lewis Thomas 61 A Favorite Charity That Won't Accept Donations Abigail Zuger 64 from Pierre Curie Marie Curie 66 A Doctor's Visit Anton Chekhov 68 A Blight on Society Marie Sheppard Williams 79 Section 3 Calamities The Sick Child Henook-Makhewe-Kelenaka 93 Mrs. Cassidy's Last Year Mary Gordon 96 People Like That Are the Only People Here Lorrie Moore 105 A Small, Good Thing Raymond Carver 134 Strong Horse Tea Alice Walker 156 Indian Camp Ernest Hemingway 163 from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Bathtime Jean-Dominique Bauby 168 The Lost Mariner Oliver Sacks 170 Section 4 Victories The Good Doctor Susan Onthank Mates 189 Okay, So I'm in This Bed Tony Gramaglia 199 Cowpath to America Abraham Verghese 201 On Not Winning the Nobel Prize Doris Lessing 217 from White Castle Orhan Pamuk 229 from Cancer Ward Alexander Solzhenitsyn 231 from A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing Reynolds Price 245 Defining a Doctor, With a Tear, a Shrug and a Schedule Abigail Zuger 255 Section 5 Pure Fancy The Masque of the Red Death Edgar Allen Poe 261 Dr. Heidegger's Experiment Nathaniel Hawthorne 266 The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas UrsulaLe Guin 275 Biographical Sketches 281 Permissions 287 About the Editors 290