Twelve Patients : Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital

Within the spirit of Oliver Sacks Awakenings and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Lifetime of Henrietta Lacks, Dr. Eric Manheimer’s TWELVE PATIENTS is a memoir from the Medical Director of Bellevue Hospital that makes use of the plights of twelve very totally different patients-from dignitaries on the close by UN, to supermax prisoners from Riker’s Island, to unlawful immigrants, and Wall Avenue tycoons-to illustrate bigger societal points. Manheimer is just not solely the medical director of the nation’s oldest public hospital, however he’s additionally a affected person. Because the ebook unfolds, the narrator is identified with most cancers, and he’s pressured to wrestle with the tip of his personal life whilst he struggles to avoid wasting the lives of others.