Meaningful, thought-provoking insight into the world of critical care.
A physician reflects on the lessons learned throughout his career in intensive care.
As a young medical student in 1985, Ely recognized that his drive to save lives sometimes came at the expense of patients’ dignity. In this dynamic, often touching debut, the author chronicles a personal, passionate return to the ethical heart of the Hippocratic oath. In addition to a timeline of the ICU and its history of medical innovations, Ely details a succession of individual bedside narratives. They range from the heartbreakingly sad, like that of his first patient, whom he wasn’t able to save who but spurred him toward more revolutionary lifesaving technologies; to more hopeful cases of patients with delirium who were aided by patient-centered care and a defining moment during his daughter’s recovery from a skull fracture. The author effectively illuminates the daily pressures placed on caregivers, especially as they relate to one particularly harrowing condition, post-intensive care syndrome, when discharged ICU patients begin to suffer chronic new conditions brought on by their tenure in the ICU (this was especially prevalent among Covid-19 survivors). Ely also provides a thoughtful exploration of the ICU treatment culture of sedation and immobilization and analyzes how it can be recentered around a core value of “humanity in doctoring.” Collectively, these anecdotes movingly exemplify the caregiver’s role in assuaging patient suffering through compassionate efforts to not only deliver quality clinical care, but to focus on “finding the person in the patient, using touch first and technology second,” and preparing and supporting patients back into life beyond the ICU setting. Ely promotes these protocols within the end-of-life spectrum, as well, where compassion, respect, and comfort are tantamount. A closing section offers practical tips and resources for further research on the care delivery process within an ICU setting, useful for both general readers and professionals. As Ely conveys through anecdotes and experience, physicians can maximize their knowledge by focusing on, listening to, and learning from their patients.
Meaningful, thought-provoking insight into the world of critical care.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982171-14-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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