The author discusses his collection of narrative essays "Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Tales of Constraints and Creativity in the ER" with Suzanne Koven via Zoom.
To be an emergency room doctor is to be a professional listener to stories. Each patient presents a story; finding the heart of that story is the doctor's most critical task. More technology, more tests, and more data won't work if doctors get the story wrong.
When caring for others can feel like venturing into unchartered territory without a map, empathy, creativity, imagination, and thinking like a writer become the cornerstones of clinical care. In "Tornado of Life" ER physician Jay Baruch shares these struggles in a series of short, powerful, and affecting essays that invite the reader into stories rich with complexity and messiness.
Jay Baruch, a practicing emergency room physician, is Professor of Emergency Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the author of two award-winning short fiction collections, "What's Left Out" and "Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers."
Suzanne Koven is a writer, primary care physician, and the inaugural Writer in Residence at Mass General Hospital. She is the author of "Letter To A Young Female Physician: Thoughts on Life and Work."
