A Doctor's Life: Unique Stories

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read- for Patients and Medical Personnel Alike
Review: "A Doctor's Life; Unique Stories" is a gripping, funny and touching real life depiction of the odyssey of Dr. William T. Close, with a description of his career as a surgeon and physician in New York, Africa and a small Wyoming town called Big Piney. His experiences speak humbly of an individual who is a humanitarian and a practical idealist, who exhibits a deep commitment to his fellow human beings, regardless of their circumstance.

But there's more! This book goes well beyond a collection of stories about a remarkable man's life. The messages illustrated in the descriptions of the patients Dr. Close encounters refocus attention on the human side of medicine. Dr. Close effectively reminds individuals working in the medical field that it is the patient whose health crisis brings the medical team together with the multiple goals of understanding the pathophysiology of disease, the delivery of optimal expert treatment and compassionate care. The patient, Dr. Close teaches us, is more than a disease, more than `a case to be plugged into a treatment protocol'.

This respect for human life is evident in the stories of his practice of rural medicine in Big Piney, Wyoming. Dr. Close describes spending the time necessary for good care and seeing many patients in their homes, especially at the end of their lives.

The messages in this book will inspire many who practice nursing and medicine to approach the care of their patients with expertise and compassion, for the sake of the patient, and for the optimum experience as a healer. Potential patients will yearn for the kind of patient/doctor relationship that Dr. Close's patients enjoy.

"A Doctor's Life; Unique Stories" is a celebration of an approach to life and fellow humans that is dedicated, passionate and honorable. Everyone who reads this book will be inspired and entertained.

Rating:
Summary: A trilogy in one book -- A Doctor's Life
Review: An elephant in the maternity ward? A carpenter's brace and bit to drill a hole in the cranium? The "Urine Man" at the Presbyterian Home for Women? Oh, and much more! Here is the story of a doctor who, using the most primitive of equipment, performed a host of procedures in this African outback so far removed from high tech medicine as most of us know it today. From the often violent, always political machinations of civil authorities in the African Congo to the quiet complacency of a small Wyoming community . . . from the hectic internship in New York to the broad expanse of the western plains . . . it's all there. A Doctor's Life is the embodiment of the tragic, the hilarious, the truly compassionate. This is a trilogy in one book: New York, Africa, Wyoming -- an exciting, wonderfully human account of Dr. William Close and his keen insight into, not just the world of medicine, but the human condition -- witty, inspiring and stunningly true to life.

Rating:
Summary: Both an autobiography and a persuasive testament
Review: In A Doctor's Life: Unique Stories, Dr. William Close draws upon his many years of practice to present the reader with invaluable insights into compassionate care giving in today's high-tech world of medicine. A medical memoir sharing cameos drawn from fifty years as a practicing physician and surgeon in New York's "Hell's Kitchen", sixteen years in Africa's brutal and chaotic Congo, and as a country doctor in rural Wyoming, these vignettes and observations include a broad spectrum of patients and notable characters ranging from African leaders to oil field roustabouts, casualties of civil war in the Congo to older people in rural Wyoming reaching the end of their lives at home. A Doctor's Life is highly recommended reading as both an autobiography and as a persuasive testament that compassion and courtesy are as important as scientific excellent when working for the benefit of patients and the advancement of the medical profession.

Rating:
Summary: Sixteen Years Medical Work in Congo/Zaire
Review: My main complaint with "A Doctor's Life: Unique Stories" is that I wish there was more. In this book Dr. Close shares many unique and moving stories from his medical practice in New York, Congo/Zaire, and Wyoming. His stories from his time in Africa are especially interesting to me. In the pre-independence Belgian Congo he worked first as a hospital surgeon in Kinshasa, then in independent Zaire, as President Mobutu's personal physician. From his perspective as a physician he sees the end of colonialism in central Africa, and the beginning of the chaos of independent Zaire. One very touching story is that of his domestic security guard, an elderly veteran of WWII, whose wish is for a doctor to see his dying wife, just so he can tell his grandchildren that she was seen by a doctor before she died. The chapters about Mobutu depict a man very different than is typically seen in print; apparently even dictators have their good side. This book is recommended to anyone who is interested in medicine or Africa. [Note: most of this book is the same as the out-of-print "A Doctor's Story"; the newer version has two new chapters and photographs.]

Rating:
Summary: Sixteen Years Medical Work in Congo/Zaire
Review: My main complaint with "A Doctor's Life: Unique Stories" is that I wish there was more. In this book Dr. Close shares many unique and moving stories from his medical practice in New York, Congo/Zaire, and Wyoming. His stories from his time in Africa are especially interesting to me. In the pre-independence Belgian Congo he worked first as a hospital surgeon in Kinshasa, then in independent Zaire, as President Mobutu's personal physician. From his perspective as a physician he sees the end of colonialism in central Africa, and the beginning of the chaos of independent Zaire. One very touching story is that of his domestic security guard, an elderly veteran of WWII, whose wish is for a doctor to see his dying wife, just so he can tell his grandchildren that she was seen by a doctor before she died. The chapters about Mobutu depict a man very different than is typically seen in print; apparently even dictators have their good side. This book is recommended to anyone who is interested in medicine or Africa. [Note: most of this book is the same as the out-of-print "A Doctor's Story"; the newer version has two new chapters and photographs.]