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THE LONG TALE OF TEARS AND SMILES by Rana   Bitar

THE LONG TALE OF TEARS AND SMILES

An Oncologist's Journey

by Rana Bitar

Pub Date: Aug. 12th, 2021
ISBN: 978-1954021228
Publisher: Global Collective Publishers

An oncologist reflects on her medical career, upbringing in Syria, and encounters with death in this memoir.

Bitar grew up in Damascus, one of four children in a household that was both bookish and progressive by the standards of the time. Always an overachieving student, she knew early on that she “wanted to be a doctor with every inch of my being.” She attended medical school in Aleppo, where she met her future husband, Joseph, and moved to New York City in 1990 to continue her studies. She would eventually become an oncologist and relocate to the United States permanently. The author relates, with great emotional sensitivity, the beauty and despair involved in a profession that stands in such close proximity to death, a constant shadow: “Solid medical training is the beginning of any oncologist’s career. But there is that space where the oncologist’s medical knowledge converges with their philosophy on the meaning of life and existence. In that space, that so-called ‘art of medicine,’ my profession thrives.” In addition, she writes movingly of her personal encounters with mortality, including the traumatic death of her little brother, Ammar. Bitar’s parents eventually fled Damascus when war erupted, and her childhood home was bombed in 2013. She delicately depicts life before the war in Syria, a place where “nothing was private, but all things were done in secret.” The author jumps back and forth between accounts of her most memorable patients—affecting tales of travails and triumphs—and her own personal life, including becoming the mother of two children. Her prose is always lucid and sometimes reaches poetical heights. She is also admirably candid, discussing in open-handed detail her own fears and emotional struggles. This is a profoundly thoughtful memoir, philosophically searching but also touchingly intimate.

A physician’s captivating remembrance, eventful and astutely introspective.