My Own Country, Abraham Verghese

Cover of My Own Country: A Doctor's Story

I first read Abraham Verghese’s book, Cutting for Stone, which was an interesting, well written, saga about a hospital and the transplanted doctors/staff in Ethiopia who raise a set of twins who become doctors.  The writing was so incredible that I looked more into the author and other books he wrote.

Not only is the author a tenured professor at Stanford Medical school, he has been published extensively, attended the Iowa Writers work shop where he got his MFA and has been nominated for the National Book Award.  An incredibly prolific man.  Impressive.

His first book, My Own Country, I just finished yesterday.  The book is his story, a doctor’s story, treating HIV patients in Tennessee just as AIDS was just starting to appear. 

Verghese’s insight, as a doctor, and his passion for helping others makes you continue to have faith in the medical world.  Wish there were more doctors like him.  He has written a few editorials about the recent subject of health care and his position is completely pro-patient vs pro-insurance/unions. I have actually read a variety of books on that time period and his book shows how nothing is an exact science.  Each patient has their own set of issues, disease affects everyone differently and treatment is not always a one trick bag.  His documentation of that time and his eagerness to find solutions while caring for his parents at the end of their life through an absolutely miserable disease really brought tears to my eyes. 

I am going to read his other book next, The Tennis Partner.