Death of the Good Doctor -- Lessons from the Heart of the AIDS Epidemic

DEATH OF THE GOOD DOCTOR –
LESSONS FROM THE HEART OF THE AIDS EPIDEMIC
A memoir by Kate Scannell, MD
Kate Scannell abandoned her academic career in 1985 to enter an ordinary medical practice in Northern California. Instead, the thirty-two-year-old physician found herself assigned to a county hospital AIDS ward where much of the medicine she has studied over many difficult years was rendered irrelevant.

Working with AIDS patients, nearly all of whom are dying, Scannell discovers the inadequacy of the "good" doctor who battles illness to keep patients alive regardless of their suffering. By embracing her patients’ unique needs and particular stories, Scannell reaches an expanded understanding of her patients and of herself as a physician.

DEATH OF THE GOOD DOCTOR richly chronicles the intimacy of Scannell’s relationships with her patients through whom the vast complexities of the epidemic are uniquely focused. It is through these beautiful, often difficult, and sometimes humorous portraits that the woman and the physician discover each other.

Originally published in paperback, 1999. e-Publication 2010.

“This haunting memoir is an important addition to the canon of AIDS literature. Scannell writes beautifully and with an insight that escapes most physicians.”—ABRAHAM VERGHESE, AUTHOR OF MYOWN COUNTRY AND CUTTING FOR STONE

“Kate Scannell is the rare doctor who has been transformed by her patients. In this irresistible, informative, and enormously moving book, she tells us not only her own story, but theirs.”—GLORIA STEINEM

“When Kate Scannell began work with AIDS patients in 1985, her idea of a good doctor was one who saved lives, not lost them, one who used state-of-the-art technological intervention to battle disease no matter what the cost. Now, in an enormously moving, thoughtful and compassionate memoir, she recounts how she discarded her traditional medical training and learned how to rely on her own sensibilities. Death of the Good Doctor: Lessons from the Heart of the AIDS Epidemic is the story of more than a dozen of Scannell's patients, the differing demands that each brought, and the relationships that developed. The individuals that she met on the ward, she writes, ‘shook me, stunned me, alarmed me, twisted me, righted me, tricked me, and amazed me.’ Their stories do the same for us, and some even make us laugh.”—ROBERT ARMSTRONG, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR/TRIBUNE

“This is one of the most startling and beautifully written books I've ever read from a doctor….Scannell begins to interact with patients in ways that take us deep into the psyches of caretaker and sufferer until we don't know which is which. Since she announces at the beginning and end her personal journey with cancer (the news is broken the day after she leaves her five-year tenure on the AIDS ward), Scannell's recollections are tinged with a sense of time slowing way down, of mindfulness exploring each detail of life's last events, of an enlarged respect for each person's unique manner of passage and joy.”—PAT HOLT, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATION

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR: “Flood Stage – A Novel” (2010)

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