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Where It Hurts: Dispatches from the Emotional Frontlines of Medicine
Not yet published
Expected 24 Mar 26Candid literary accounts by doctors, nurses, and other healers shed light on the intense challenges and triumphs of medical life, reflecting the resilience, ingenuity, and compassion they use to get by.
In Where It Hurts, more than 60 doctors, nurses, therapists, EMTs, patient advocates, and other medical professionals offer a window into the space between health and illness, life and death as they share stories of difficult patients, life-changing diagnoses, their own failures, and the successes that make everything worth it. What they feel, we feel, in highly relatable, beautifully written essays, poems, and short stories that are by turns conversational, urgent, plain-spoken, spare, poetic, heart-rending, and heart-mending.
A doctor shares the do-or-die pep talk she gives herself when intubating a young patient.
A nurse contemplates how to act when tending to a woman accused of murder.
A GI fellow serves up an unorthodox “cure” for an ER regular with a proclivity for fajitas.
An intensive care physician recalls the surreal early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A therapist carts a box of police reports, abandoned by a long-ago patient, to yet another new office.
Anger, shame, panic, loneliness, love, hate, wonder, They’re all part of a day’s work. As the authors of each piece unpack the highs and lows of their vocation, they teach us what it means to empathize deeply, to live fully, and to be human.
In Where It Hurts, more than 60 doctors, nurses, therapists, EMTs, patient advocates, and other medical professionals offer a window into the space between health and illness, life and death as they share stories of difficult patients, life-changing diagnoses, their own failures, and the successes that make everything worth it. What they feel, we feel, in highly relatable, beautifully written essays, poems, and short stories that are by turns conversational, urgent, plain-spoken, spare, poetic, heart-rending, and heart-mending.
A doctor shares the do-or-die pep talk she gives herself when intubating a young patient.
A nurse contemplates how to act when tending to a woman accused of murder.
A GI fellow serves up an unorthodox “cure” for an ER regular with a proclivity for fajitas.
An intensive care physician recalls the surreal early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A therapist carts a box of police reports, abandoned by a long-ago patient, to yet another new office.
Anger, shame, panic, loneliness, love, hate, wonder, They’re all part of a day’s work. As the authors of each piece unpack the highs and lows of their vocation, they teach us what it means to empathize deeply, to live fully, and to be human.
288 pages, Paperback
Expected publication March 24, 2026
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 2, 2025
Healthcare workers sometimes get a reputation (often self-imposed) for being numb to it all - once you've seen everything, nothing surprises you anymore. It's a joke that gets played over and over again in media, meme pages, and even between friends and loved ones (I myself definitely make jokes about being dead inside about once a day to my friends and co-residents) - it's all in good fun, but it's not true at the core, no matter how many times your loved one tells you that they're fine.
In "Where It Hurts", more than 60 doctors, nurses, therapists, EMTs, patient advocates, and other medical professionals offer a window into the space between health and illness, life and death as they share stories of difficult patients, life-changing diagnoses, their own failures, and the successes that make everything worth it. From short stories to essays, from poems to memoirs, healthcare professionals take space to share what they feel - their joys, their triumphs, their grief, their suffering, their guilt, and their forgiveness - to themselves, and to a system which asks much and gives little in return.
This is a must-read for those in healthcare and the friends and family that love and want to understand them. Here is a treasure trove of writing - from the short and sweet to the reflective and voluminous, there's a little something that everyone - even those who insist that they don't feel anything and don't need to reflect on medicine because "it's just a job" - should be able to read and relate to (read "Your First Pediatric Intubation" and tell me that you're not haunted by the dragons of your self-doubt as you weep openly, I dare you).
I think it's hard to admit in medicine and in life - particularly in self-obsessed, self-started, above-it-all America - that the things we see and do or don't do, conversely) affect us. We see crying and feeling and talking about how messed up this all is as a weakness, and while preaching to our patients that self-reflection, taking time, and naming/facing your emotions is important, we are loathe to do it ourselves. I think books - whether fiction or nonfiction - are an easy way to being the path to letting go of some of the hurt, the stoicism, and the poor coping habits healthcare workers in particular try to form for themselves as a shield against the horrible things they see. This book in particular is a short read that those looking for a way in should consider picking up - and maybe call your mom or a therapist too, while you're at it.
In "Where It Hurts", more than 60 doctors, nurses, therapists, EMTs, patient advocates, and other medical professionals offer a window into the space between health and illness, life and death as they share stories of difficult patients, life-changing diagnoses, their own failures, and the successes that make everything worth it. From short stories to essays, from poems to memoirs, healthcare professionals take space to share what they feel - their joys, their triumphs, their grief, their suffering, their guilt, and their forgiveness - to themselves, and to a system which asks much and gives little in return.
This is a must-read for those in healthcare and the friends and family that love and want to understand them. Here is a treasure trove of writing - from the short and sweet to the reflective and voluminous, there's a little something that everyone - even those who insist that they don't feel anything and don't need to reflect on medicine because "it's just a job" - should be able to read and relate to (read "Your First Pediatric Intubation" and tell me that you're not haunted by the dragons of your self-doubt as you weep openly, I dare you).
I think it's hard to admit in medicine and in life - particularly in self-obsessed, self-started, above-it-all America - that the things we see and do or don't do, conversely) affect us. We see crying and feeling and talking about how messed up this all is as a weakness, and while preaching to our patients that self-reflection, taking time, and naming/facing your emotions is important, we are loathe to do it ourselves. I think books - whether fiction or nonfiction - are an easy way to being the path to letting go of some of the hurt, the stoicism, and the poor coping habits healthcare workers in particular try to form for themselves as a shield against the horrible things they see. This book in particular is a short read that those looking for a way in should consider picking up - and maybe call your mom or a therapist too, while you're at it.
January 17, 2026
Listen, I know I’m biased to like this because I work in healthcare. BUT I feel that this is a great read for someone who wants to understand the human experience of taking care of another person as a career.
Notable short stories, essays and poems include:
Things I learned from pole dancing that I did not learn from residency
Becoming a doctor
Love, Frank
My favorite patient
Untarnished
Chronic Black Excellence
Ambulance Stories
The Shape of the Shore
Everything
The Boxer
Top Surgery
Notable short stories, essays and poems include:
Things I learned from pole dancing that I did not learn from residency
Becoming a doctor
Love, Frank
My favorite patient
Untarnished
Chronic Black Excellence
Ambulance Stories
The Shape of the Shore
Everything
The Boxer
Top Surgery
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews