EMERGENCY!

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 3, 1983

Dr. Seager, author of the non-fiction Breathe, Little Boy, Breathe!, supplies his first fictional scalpel-saga with a solid lode of medical lore, hefty info on Emergency Room procedures, and the usual array of M.D. miseries. Dr. Brett Sellers, a regular in the ER, narrates most of the multi-Doc story. But it's Dr. Michael Woods, admired by colleagues for his skill and personal decency, who's in big trouble: a widower, still grieving over the death-in-life of comatose wife Elizabeth, Woods is into drugs and having an affair with fine, married ER nurse Jessie Leggett. Meanwhile, the ER's three student docs have their problems too: withdrawn Malcolm Skinner is forced to face real life--when his first baby is born with a severe respiratory problem; F. D. ""Snake"" Brown, a ghetto kid and Viet vet who persevered to M.D.-hood, is in what could be a fatal bind when an old Viet buddy tries some successful blackmail; Barbara Hunter, a pink-cheeked dynamo from Utah, will finally freak out when she's unable to save a child-abuse victim. And, as for Brett himself, his heart condition will send him to his own ER, where he'll view ""routine procedures"" from a patient's bed--and resolve to make some changes. Prescription pads are stolen; Woods' pill-popping turns to mainlining; Jessie, pregnant by the doc, is faced with lying to an inquiry board about Woods' malpractice. All ER's chillun here got blues, in other words, but if the private-life woes are standard soap, the doctoring has lots of grit and gruesome authenticity.

Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION