A varied collection of writings that, at its best, captures the quotidian pleasures of a doctor’s 50 years of service.
A dermatologist recounts a series of vignettes from his professional and personal life.
In his preface, Bierman explains that these pieces were originally published as “Reflections” in his quarterly Bierman Dermatology Newsletter, which he issued to patients over 13 years. The stories are often related to his practice, including “The Man with the Golden Penis,” which, as readers might guess, is about a patient’s fondness for intimate jewelry—much to the shock of the good doctor. In a thematically related account, “The Peripatetic Posthumous Peregrination of Napoleon’s Penis,” Bierman succinctly summarizes the (perhaps apocryphal) story of Napoleon’s severed penis. Legend has it that the late emperor’s penis was removed after his autopsy by his confidant, Abbe Vignali, and taken to Corsica. Bierman then traces the ownership of the excised appendage until 1974, when urologist Dr. John K. Lattimer, Bierman’s friend, purchased it for $3,000. Nongenitalia-related vignettes include an account of chance elevator meeting with Phil Silvers, the comedy actor who played Sgt. Bilko in the 1950s TV program The Phil Silvers Show. Some entries, however, seem out of place. These include “The Underclass and Society,” “Racism in America” and “The Sexual Revolution of the 1960s Through 1980s,” which are overtly political, in striking contrast to the genteel writing in other recollections. Many stories tell of Bierman’s travels to faraway places like South America, London, Egypt and Alaska, but consist mostly of unengaging retellings of his itineraries. Bierman’s clinically clear and concise writing is most interesting when it reflects his personality. In “A Prescription for Melancholia,” for instance, Bierman offers a laundry list of his favorite ways to beat the blues that includes ice cream, comedian Robin Williams and the musical The Phantom of the Opera.
A varied collection of writings that, at its best, captures the quotidian pleasures of a doctor’s 50 years of service.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-1466959835
Page Count: 162
Publisher: Trafford
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
