I've decided to change my rating based on my personal experiences. I've been an RN at UCLA for the past 6 1/2 years and although I am on "friendly" terms with some of the physicians I work with, I have NEVER come across one of them who express sentiments like these. Doctors rarely give their patients a second thought after leaving the room (if they ever enter it to begin with) much less show any empathy at all. They don't even do a hand-on exam any more. They rely on the bedside nurse who is with the patient 24/7, and the on staff Nurse Practitioner to actually lay hands on the patient for an initial H&P - which they promptly copy and paste into their notes as though it were their own to lay claim to. So I call a big bullshit on all these stories. Pure fiction. Would be nice if they were true, but in reality it just doesn't happen. ( )

Had to read this for med school, but they only gave us an excerpt (about 30 pages). But I found it interesting and fascinating enough to want to finish reading it. Which... goodness, hopefully I'll have the time to do. I'm still in the middle of Anna Karenina anyway.

So I marked it down as "want to read" but gave it a review for the portion I've already read. I'll see if I can pick it up at the library or something.

It's an interesting take on the medical world through the eyes of a woman. Stereotypes and dating and the difficulty of keeping one's optimism and balancing life with career. How to excell in work without sacrificing life. I have the subtle feeling that a lot of this book might apply to me in the future

I can't exactly review the book because 30 pages is just not enough to get a sense of how the whole book flows together, how the ending will look. But I can tell that her writing style is sharp and snappish, truthful but still ironic as she goes through her life experiences. I like the way she writes. It's a mix of inner thoughts and detailed descriptions with interspersed dialogue that highlights her observations of people or her decisions.

I'll hopefully be returning to this and writing a more complete review. ( )

Had to read this for med school, but they only gave us an excerpt (about 30 pages). But I found it interesting and fascinating enough to want to finish reading it. Which... goodness, hopefully I'll have the time to do. I'm still in the middle of Anna Karenina anyway.

So I marked it down as "want to read" but gave it a review for the portion I've already read. I'll see if I can pick it up at the library or something.

It's an interesting take on the medical world through the eyes of a woman. Stereotypes and dating and the difficulty of keeping one's optimism and balancing life with career. How to excell in work without sacrificing life. I have the subtle feeling that a lot of this book might apply to me in the future

I can't exactly review the book because 30 pages is just not enough to get a sense of how the whole book flows together, how the ending will look. But I can tell that her writing style is sharp and snappish, truthful but still ironic as she goes through her life experiences. I like the way she writes. It's a mix of inner thoughts and detailed descriptions with interspersed dialogue that highlights her observations of people or her decisions.

I'll hopefully be returning to this and writing a more complete review. ( )

this author makes me so jealous/envious -- harvard MD. AND MFA. AND she lives in san francisco!? AND is generally awesome and wins writing prizes!? *sigh*

Louise Aronson has an MFA from Warren Wilson College and an MD from Harvard. She has received the Sonora Review prize, the New Millennium short fiction award, and three Pushcart nominations. Her fiction has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review and the Literary Review, among other publications. She is an associate professor of medicine at UCSF, where she cares for older patients and directs the Northern California Geriatrics Education Center and UCSF Medical Humanities. She lives in San Francisco.

i am feeling professionally inadequate! :)

this book really resonated with me -- though i found it hard at moments to separate the fiction from the fact - wondering often what was real and what was made-up? the style of the telling very much lends itself to just hearing a doctor speak about cases/people she has known.

this collection of short stories is really wonderful. Aronson writes in a way that complex emotions and ideas are addressed via memorable characters and tight prose. ( )

“In medicine, the ‘history of the present illness’, or HPI, is the critical first portion of the medical note that describes the onset, duration, character, context, and severity of the illness. Basically, it’s the story, and without it, you can’t understand what’s going on with your patient.”

A History of the Present Illness is an extraordinary collection of peripherally linked vignettes that explore the current practice and experience of health care in America.

Insightful, honest and compassionate, Aronson, an accomplished practicing physician overlays truth with fiction to illustrate the plight of her colleagues, patients and families as they navigate bureaucracy and illness. Clinical objectivity blurs with humane compassion, triumph with heartbreak in stories of complex, emotional and medical crisis.

There are sixteen stories that cross the boundaries of race, age and gender. Each give a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people within the health care system. Patients like Rodney Brown whose leg aches even though he left it in the desert sand of Afghanistan (After) and doctors like Robert who witness the obscenity of slow death and and are expected to do nothing (Giving Good Death). I found 'An Amercian Problem' almost unbearably sad, it is an indictment of a society who has relinquished the care of its most vulnerable members in favour of balancing the budget, and 'Soup or Sex?' an incredibly touching portrait of a young man fighting with uncommon bravery to be more than his disease. All of the anecdotes are affecting however, inspiring hope and admiration as often as anger and disgust.

A History of The Present Illness is a remarkable read, quietly attesting to the triumphs and failures of the American health care system. Forget what you think you know of medicine from watching Grey's Anatomy or General Hospital. In real life, caring for people is much messier than either show can portray.

Just a note: There was a problem with the formatting of my Kindle ARC edition that I hope is not present in the finished version. Aside from broken sentences, there were no clear separators between the stories and I was thrown a number of times by suddenly finding myself in the midst of a new story. The formatting issues also made 'Blurred Boundary Disorder' particularly difficult to read. ( )