Death of the Good Doctor -- Lessons from the Heart of the AIDS Epidemic - Softcover

Scannell, Kate, M.d.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1468146173 ISBN 13: 9781468146172

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012

Synopsis

A Woman Physician's Memoir of Working with AIDS Patients during the Early HIV Epidemic in Northern California

Doctor Kate Scannell abandoned her academic career in 1985 expecting to enter an "ordinary" medical practice in Northern California. Instead, the thirty-two-year-old physician found herself assigned to an Alameda county hospital's AIDS ward where much of the medicine she had studied over many difficult years was rendered irrelevant.

Working with AIDS patients, nearly all of whom were dying, Scannell discovered the inadequacy of the "good doctor" who battles illness to keep patients alive regardless of their suffering. By embracing her patients’ unique needs and stories, Scannell reached an expanded understanding of her patients and of herself as a physician.

Death of the Good Doctor richly chronicles the intimacy of Scannell’s relationships with her patients through whom the vast complexities of the AIDS epidemic are uniquely focused. It is through these beautiful, often difficult, and sometimes humorous portraits that the woman and the physician discover each other.

Acclaim for Death of the Good Doctor--Lessons from the Heart of the AIDS Epidemic

* This haunting memoir is an important addition to the canon of AIDS literature. Scannell writes beautifully and with an insight that escapes most physicians. --Abraham Verghese, author of My Own Country and Cutting for Stone

* Kate Scannell is the rare doctor who has been transformed by her patients. In this irresistible, informative, and enormously moving book, she tells us not only her own story, but theirs. --Gloria Steinem

* When Kate Scannell began work with AIDS patients in 1985, her idea of a good doctor was one who saved lives, not lost them, one who used state-of-the-art technological intervention to battle disease no matter what the cost. Now, in an enormously moving, thoughtful and compassionate memoir, she recounts how she discarded her traditional medical training and learned how to rely on her own sensibilities... The individuals that she met on the ward, she writes, "shook me, stunned me, alarmed me, twisted me, righted me, tricked me, and amazed me." Their stories do the same for us, and some even make us laugh. --Minneapolis Star/Tribune

Publication History

Originally published in paperback, 1999 (Cleis Press); then out of print. Rights reverted to the author in 2010 and the book was released in electronic format. It was back in print 2012 and with photographs added in 2018.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Kate Scannell is the author of the psychological thriller Immortal Wounds—A Doctor Nora Kelly Mystery and the short story collection Flood Stage. She practiced medicine in the San Francisco Bay Area where she currently lives, writes and gardens.

For more information: www.katescannellmd.com

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1468146173
• ISBN 13: 9781468146172
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216