You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctor's Stories of Life, Death and in Between - Softcover

Lamas, Dr. Daniela

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349412774 ISBN 13: 9780349412771

Publisher: Piatkus, 2018

Synopsis

'Gripping, soaring, inspiring . . . Read it' - Atul Gawande, author of the international bestseller Being Mortal

'You Can Stop Humming Now is essential reading on what it means to be human in an age of medical technology. I couldn't put it down' - Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body

'In turns anguishing, gripping, and hopeful, You Can Stop Humming Now is a must-read for anyone contemplating what medicine holds in store for us.' - Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Patients Say, What Doctors Feel

Modern medicine is a world that glimmers with new technology and cutting-edge research. To the public eye, medical stories often begin with sirens and flashing lights and culminate in survival or death. But these are only the most visible narratives. As a critical care doctor treating people at their sickest, Daniela Lamas is fascinated by a different story: what comes after for those whose lives are extended by days, months, or years as a result of our treatments and technologies?

In You Can Stop Humming Now, Lamas explores the complex answers to this question through intimate accounts of patients and their families. A grandfather whose failing heart has been replaced by a battery-operated pump; a salesman who found himself a kidney donor on social media; a college student who survived a near fatal overdose and returned home, alive but not the same; and a young woman navigating an adulthood she never thought she'd live to see-these moving narratives paint a detailed picture of the fragile border between sickness and health.

Riveting, beautifully told, and deeply personal, You Can Stop Humming Now is a compassionate, uncompromising look at the choices and realities that many of us, and our families, may one day face.

About this title

About the Author

Following her graduation from Harvard College magna cum laude in 2003, Daniela Lamas was a medical reporter at the Miami Herald. She went on to earn her M.D. at Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons, where she completed her internship and residency. In 2011, she served as an editorial fellow at the New England Journal of Medicine, under Harvard Medical School Professor and Journal editor-in-chief Dr. Jeffrey Drazen. She is currently a Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellow at Harvard, where she works at Ariadne Labs, an innovation laboratory headed by Dr. Atul Gawande. She has also worked on the ABC News Medical Unit, led by Dr. Richard Besser. As a writer, she has been published in Newyorker.com, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic and she has had numerous pieces published in the New York Times.

Edition details

• Publisher: Piatkus
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0349412774
• ISBN 13: 9780349412771
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256