Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers

Baruch, Jay

Primary Category: Literature / Fiction

Genre: Collection (Short Stories)

Annotated by:
Kohn, Martin
  • Date of entry: May-29-2007

Summary

Jay Baruch offers readers a series of multi-layered stories focusing on caregivers, both professionals (doctors and nurses primarily) and family members, and those they are trying to care for. The setting for a number of the stories (and therefore a number of the characters) is from the working class or underclass. Another group of stories is written from the perspective of medical students, residents or physicians early in their training. In all the stories, the characters' lives are close and full of conflict. The language they use to express themselves is raw and direct. There are no simple solutions to their problems. Yet struggle on do these characters, testing the limits of their compassion and abilities to deliver care at least competently.

Commentary

Jay Baruch is a powerful new voice in a growing field of young physician-writers. This is his first collection (part of the literature and medicine series I co-edit), although many of the stories in this collection have been previously published in print and on-line journals. Many of the works revolve around specific ethical issues that health care workers and families face trying to care for patients, which make this collection useful for health care ethics courses. A well-crafted essay about writing from the Emergency Department is included as an Afterword.

Publisher

Kent State University Press

Place Published

Kent, Ohio

Edition

2007

Page Count

143