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White Hot Light: Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine
FINALIST FOR THE JAN MICHALSKI PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
Another “pitch-perfect book of short essays” (New York Times Book Review) from the acclaimed author of Blood of Strangers, this one exploring the contemporary practice of medicine from the perspective of a doctor with 25 years of experience in the ER.
In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER. Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes, The Blood of Strangers became an instant classic.
Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches—this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death.
From the doomed, like the Iraq vet with a brain full of shrapnel, to the self-destructive, like the young woman who inserts a sewing needle into her heart, to the transcendent, like the homeless Navajo artist whose sketches charm the nurses, Huyler assembles a profound mosaic of human suffering and grace, complemented by episodes from his personal the hail that fell the night his wife gave birth, his drive through a snowstorm to see his father in a Colorado ER, the beautiful wedding of his childhood friend with terminal cancer. Melding hard-earned wisdom with a poet’s crystalline vision, Huyler evokes the awesome burden of responsibility, the exhaustion, the relief of a costume disco nurse party, and those rare occasions when the confluence of luck and science yield, in the author’s words, “moments of breathtaking greatness.”
White Hot Light offers an unforgettable portrait of a field that illuminates society at its most vulnerable, and its most elemental.
Another “pitch-perfect book of short essays” (New York Times Book Review) from the acclaimed author of Blood of Strangers, this one exploring the contemporary practice of medicine from the perspective of a doctor with 25 years of experience in the ER.
In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER. Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes, The Blood of Strangers became an instant classic.
Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches—this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death.
From the doomed, like the Iraq vet with a brain full of shrapnel, to the self-destructive, like the young woman who inserts a sewing needle into her heart, to the transcendent, like the homeless Navajo artist whose sketches charm the nurses, Huyler assembles a profound mosaic of human suffering and grace, complemented by episodes from his personal the hail that fell the night his wife gave birth, his drive through a snowstorm to see his father in a Colorado ER, the beautiful wedding of his childhood friend with terminal cancer. Melding hard-earned wisdom with a poet’s crystalline vision, Huyler evokes the awesome burden of responsibility, the exhaustion, the relief of a costume disco nurse party, and those rare occasions when the confluence of luck and science yield, in the author’s words, “moments of breathtaking greatness.”
White Hot Light offers an unforgettable portrait of a field that illuminates society at its most vulnerable, and its most elemental.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 25, 2020
About the author
Frank Huyler
9 books47 followersBorn 1964, in Berkeley, CA; married, 2000. Education: Williams College, B.A., 1986; University of North Carolina School of Medicine, M.D., M.P.H. Addresses: Home: Albuquerque, NM.
CAREER:
Emergency medicine physician, educator, and author. University of New Mexico Hospitals, Albuquerque, resident, 1993- 96; physician, 1996--; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, assistant professor of emergency medicine.
CAREER:
Emergency medicine physician, educator, and author. University of New Mexico Hospitals, Albuquerque, resident, 1993- 96; physician, 1996--; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, assistant professor of emergency medicine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
October 11, 2020
Due to his success with The Blood of Strangers, I just had to read White Hot Light, Dr. Frank Huyler’s memoir looking back on his career in ER medicine after over two decades in the trenches.
I didn’t watch the show ER until it was in re-runs, but I LOVED it. Same with Grey’s in its early years. Well, this reminded me of the best of both of those shows but of course it’s real. There’s the adrenaline, worry, tension, heart, love, and hard work. It’s an Illuminating portrait of a dedicated career. Each essay is a quick, compelling vignette, and every single one made me grateful for those who make the sacrifice to save lives. And with the Covid crisis currently happening? I’m more in awe than ever of our medical professionals and their dedication.
Check this one out for an exceptionally well-written, exciting, and heartrending read. It’s so well-done it “feels” like fiction, but it’s not.
I received a gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
I didn’t watch the show ER until it was in re-runs, but I LOVED it. Same with Grey’s in its early years. Well, this reminded me of the best of both of those shows but of course it’s real. There’s the adrenaline, worry, tension, heart, love, and hard work. It’s an Illuminating portrait of a dedicated career. Each essay is a quick, compelling vignette, and every single one made me grateful for those who make the sacrifice to save lives. And with the Covid crisis currently happening? I’m more in awe than ever of our medical professionals and their dedication.
Check this one out for an exceptionally well-written, exciting, and heartrending read. It’s so well-done it “feels” like fiction, but it’s not.
I received a gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
February 19, 2024
Interesting topic, but I didn’t like how the stories were organized. There was a lot of jumping from one memory to the next, so fast that I was still contemplating what I’ve just heard. A little more reflection and context would have helped.
September 13, 2026
I read this book for one reason: Betsy Robinson's glowing review. I started it as bedtime reading, but quickly realized that I didn't need to fall asleep with some of these visions in my head, so I finished the book in the bright light of day. I was right to continue instead of putting it aside, this man's writing is incandescent, but he's also a realist, which you would have to be to work in an emergency room.
When I was 16, I volunteered with a friend as a Candy Striper in our local hospital, more from wanting one of those cute little red and white uniforms than a desire to help humanity. We were mostly assigned to duties involving transporting wheelchairs and gurneys from rooms to treatment areas and back again. It turned me off medicine as a career when I realized how mean sick people could be. From an adult perspective, I now realize it was because of pain and fear, but teenagers take it all personally. After graduation I became a Veterinary Technician, largely because animals can't talk back.
But emergency rooms are a different animal because those doctors and nurses see the worst of the worst. Victims of violence, mentally ill patients, horrible accidents, innocent children, drug overdoses, heart attacks; you name it, they've seen it. But no matter how horrifying it may be, they have to remain calm and focused, working 12 hour shifts that drain them, them returning to do it all again the next day. I have been in the emergency room a few times with my husband, and these people are saints and life savers.
This book made me realize how iffy life can sometimes be, and how lucky we are to be able to rely on these kind of health professionals to help us.
When I was 16, I volunteered with a friend as a Candy Striper in our local hospital, more from wanting one of those cute little red and white uniforms than a desire to help humanity. We were mostly assigned to duties involving transporting wheelchairs and gurneys from rooms to treatment areas and back again. It turned me off medicine as a career when I realized how mean sick people could be. From an adult perspective, I now realize it was because of pain and fear, but teenagers take it all personally. After graduation I became a Veterinary Technician, largely because animals can't talk back.
But emergency rooms are a different animal because those doctors and nurses see the worst of the worst. Victims of violence, mentally ill patients, horrible accidents, innocent children, drug overdoses, heart attacks; you name it, they've seen it. But no matter how horrifying it may be, they have to remain calm and focused, working 12 hour shifts that drain them, them returning to do it all again the next day. I have been in the emergency room a few times with my husband, and these people are saints and life savers.
This book made me realize how iffy life can sometimes be, and how lucky we are to be able to rely on these kind of health professionals to help us.
April 19, 2021
White Hot Light: Twenty-five Years in Emergency Medicine by Frank Huyler gives the reader an unflinching look at life in the ER. Through a series of essays, the author describes his years helping patients: those who could be mended and those who could not. It is a place where joy meets heartbreak on any given day and where Huyler responds with grace. We also get glimpses of his personal life. This book is so relevant today because of Covid 19. Doctors and all emergency and ICU personnel have become heroes because of the tremendous burden this pandemic is putting on health care and lives. Thank you Frank Huyler for a glimpse into your world. Highly recommended.
September 18, 2020
White Hot Light is a collection of short, compelling personal essays/narratives, mostly about Frank Huyler’s life in emergency medicine. A few of the pieces focus on memories of childhood and youth, and a couple of others highlight medical culture—the separate worlds of doctors and nurses, the resistance of specialists to having difficult or complex cases handed over to them from the ER, and the petty prejudices that patients wish doctors could somehow rise above. The stories are not strictly medical. They focus less on anatomy, pathology, and procedures than on moral and ethical dilemmas. Huyler is honest about his own fears, failings, and fatigue and how these have impacted his medical decision making and the care he’s provided over the years. Some stories present patients as raw, animal selves; others convey a sense of what it’s like to deal with humans at their most vulnerable, as they attempt to preserve what dignity they have left. Throughout, Huyler is determined to maintain his humanity, acknowledging how much easier the work would be if he walled himself off from the suffering of others. The writing is exceptional and nuanced—literary without being ostentatious. For all these reasons, I think the book would appeal to those who normally steer clear of nonfiction. I recommend it highly.
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September 1, 2021
Frank Huyler (who is a physician in Albuquerque) returns with a collection of 30 essays documenting over 25 years of his life in the chaotic Emergency Room. White Hot Light comes more than twenty years after his epic first book, The Blood of Strangers. In this new collection, as in the earlier one, Huyler writes about his classmates, co-workers, patients, and the harrowing, exhausting, and sometimes exhilarating work he performs under the bright white light. Very explicit language and the tales within are not for those who desire rigamarole and consistent medical cases that are clean.
"When children are hurting badly they are quiet. The man was dead on the ground by the cherry picker. A gust of wind had come. This danger came from kindness. The cherry picker changed me for a while."
—Dr. Frank Huyler
From the start, Frank grabs us quickly with “The Boy,” and we go inside as he examines a young teen shot through the heart. The sad part is that the boy will not live. His team inspects the now-dead body; there's a communal sense of practical problem-solving mixed with intimacy, reverence, and curiosity in this rather terminal case of a child. He contrasts this with a personal quip about the night his own Son was born; another describing a single Dad who carried in his injured-Marine son — with his little “brain full of shrapnel” — into the hospital.
Throughout, Huyler succeeds in becoming emotionally wrapped up in these people’s stories of disease, injury, mental illness, and addiction — their fights to survive and, sometimes, to die. The essay “Mercy,” in particular, demonstrates how complicated a physician’s role as healer can be. In “The Sleeper,” Huyler and his team are faced with a patient having a heart attack. They act swiftly and save the man’s life.“Glory, like failure, like so many of the black stories, is private and small in medicine." Excellent read and it's not for the faint or person who is aversive to gore. Read.
"When children are hurting badly they are quiet. The man was dead on the ground by the cherry picker. A gust of wind had come. This danger came from kindness. The cherry picker changed me for a while."
—Dr. Frank Huyler
From the start, Frank grabs us quickly with “The Boy,” and we go inside as he examines a young teen shot through the heart. The sad part is that the boy will not live. His team inspects the now-dead body; there's a communal sense of practical problem-solving mixed with intimacy, reverence, and curiosity in this rather terminal case of a child. He contrasts this with a personal quip about the night his own Son was born; another describing a single Dad who carried in his injured-Marine son — with his little “brain full of shrapnel” — into the hospital.
Throughout, Huyler succeeds in becoming emotionally wrapped up in these people’s stories of disease, injury, mental illness, and addiction — their fights to survive and, sometimes, to die. The essay “Mercy,” in particular, demonstrates how complicated a physician’s role as healer can be. In “The Sleeper,” Huyler and his team are faced with a patient having a heart attack. They act swiftly and save the man’s life.“Glory, like failure, like so many of the black stories, is private and small in medicine." Excellent read and it's not for the faint or person who is aversive to gore. Read.
August 8, 2026
Part II of this heart-ripping collection of 30 essays starts with an epigraph:
After reading Frank Huyler’s upcoming (October 6th) novel The Red Dress , I wanted to read everything this author/emergency medicine doctor has written, and when I got my hands on White Hot Light: Twenty-five years in Emergency Medicine (HarperPerennial, 2020), I scarcely let it go.
It is rare that writers write for the most selfless reasons. Writers, like everybody else, need to pay bills. Some have a deep ache to express something that they hope the world will love and appreciate. Some really misguided writers write in the hope of notoriety.
For me, the only reason to write is if I cannot not write and, if I am writing for publication, to do what Ray Bradbury said: “Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.”
Every single remarkable essay in this collection does that. And it rips you, the reader, open.
When I got to the catharsis of The Red Dress, I gasped, “That’s it!” meaning this is the human journey—he did it; he dramatized it in such a way that the reader feels it.
The nonfiction essays in White Hot Light tell stories of patients and doctors in the ER, of human beings pulled apart and doctors putting them back together, of adventures all over the world, and because they are coming through the white, hot prism of a human being who increasingly understands his and all of our precariousness and the miracle that we exist at all, they make us pulse. If you are flat-lining, read them and they will be a literary defibrillator.
In an essay called “The Horse,” Huyler writes:
This book was published in 2020, and I think I can deduce from the trajectory from this to The Red Dress that Frank Huyler will never stop resisting cruelty; he will always allow the world and life to burn through him. He is one of those rare, unassuming, quietly courageous people who refuses to harden or block the white hot light, but chooses to share it for all of us other precarious beings.
Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.
—Ray Bradbury
After reading Frank Huyler’s upcoming (October 6th) novel The Red Dress , I wanted to read everything this author/emergency medicine doctor has written, and when I got my hands on White Hot Light: Twenty-five years in Emergency Medicine (HarperPerennial, 2020), I scarcely let it go.
It is rare that writers write for the most selfless reasons. Writers, like everybody else, need to pay bills. Some have a deep ache to express something that they hope the world will love and appreciate. Some really misguided writers write in the hope of notoriety.
For me, the only reason to write is if I cannot not write and, if I am writing for publication, to do what Ray Bradbury said: “Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.”
Every single remarkable essay in this collection does that. And it rips you, the reader, open.
When I got to the catharsis of The Red Dress, I gasped, “That’s it!” meaning this is the human journey—he did it; he dramatized it in such a way that the reader feels it.
The nonfiction essays in White Hot Light tell stories of patients and doctors in the ER, of human beings pulled apart and doctors putting them back together, of adventures all over the world, and because they are coming through the white, hot prism of a human being who increasingly understands his and all of our precariousness and the miracle that we exist at all, they make us pulse. If you are flat-lining, read them and they will be a literary defibrillator.
In an essay called “The Horse,” Huyler writes:
Experience makes you stop seeing cruelties of the world for what they are. It’s something you must resist, and something you must remind yourself to resist.” (73)
This book was published in 2020, and I think I can deduce from the trajectory from this to The Red Dress that Frank Huyler will never stop resisting cruelty; he will always allow the world and life to burn through him. He is one of those rare, unassuming, quietly courageous people who refuses to harden or block the white hot light, but chooses to share it for all of us other precarious beings.
August 18, 2020
Dr. Frank Huyler, who is a physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, reflects on his own life, and the experiences he’s gained in over twenty five years of working in emergency medicine.
In this fascinating book, Dr. Huyler provides a glimpse of what actually happens inside an emergency room. He writes thoughtfully about the cases he has seen over a long career. There are heart wrenching scenes as well as successful outcomes all described in short vignettes.
This book would definitely appeal to anyone interested in the practice of medicine!
Thank you to Net Galley, Harper Collins Publishers, and Doctor Frank Huyler for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC of this book!
In this fascinating book, Dr. Huyler provides a glimpse of what actually happens inside an emergency room. He writes thoughtfully about the cases he has seen over a long career. There are heart wrenching scenes as well as successful outcomes all described in short vignettes.
This book would definitely appeal to anyone interested in the practice of medicine!
Thank you to Net Galley, Harper Collins Publishers, and Doctor Frank Huyler for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC of this book!
September 23, 2022
Fascinating stories.
February 28, 2026
decent book for anyone in Healthcare, doctrs, nurses, ME, etc. gives you a good insight into the cases, scenarios and people you may run into especially in a long time on the job and how it may feel as well as the process. informative, personally but still has accurate information about said career
October 16, 2020
In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER. Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes, The Blood of Strangers became an instant classic.
Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches—this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death.
From the doomed, like the Iraq vet with a brain full of shrapnel, to the self-destructive, like the young woman who inserts a sewing needle into her heart, to the transcendent, like the homeless Navajo artist whose sketches charm the nurses, Huyler assembles a profound mosaic of human suffering and grace, complemented by episodes from his personal life: the hail that fell the night his wife gave birth, his drive through a snowstorm to see his father in a Colorado ER, the beautiful wedding of his childhood friend with terminal cancer. Melding hard-earned wisdom with a poet’s crystalline vision, Huyler evokes the awesome burden of responsibility, the exhaustion, the relief of a costume disco nurse party, and those rare occasions when the confluence of luck and science yield, in the author’s words, “moments of breathtaking greatness.”
White Hot Light offers an unforgettable portrait of a field that illuminates society at its most vulnerable, and its most elemental.
Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches—this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death.
From the doomed, like the Iraq vet with a brain full of shrapnel, to the self-destructive, like the young woman who inserts a sewing needle into her heart, to the transcendent, like the homeless Navajo artist whose sketches charm the nurses, Huyler assembles a profound mosaic of human suffering and grace, complemented by episodes from his personal life: the hail that fell the night his wife gave birth, his drive through a snowstorm to see his father in a Colorado ER, the beautiful wedding of his childhood friend with terminal cancer. Melding hard-earned wisdom with a poet’s crystalline vision, Huyler evokes the awesome burden of responsibility, the exhaustion, the relief of a costume disco nurse party, and those rare occasions when the confluence of luck and science yield, in the author’s words, “moments of breathtaking greatness.”
White Hot Light offers an unforgettable portrait of a field that illuminates society at its most vulnerable, and its most elemental.
Read
July 4, 2022kinda hated how poetic this was trying to be. i wanted cold hard facts. tbh didn't know i'd be reading a contemporary fiction novel over here. but, 'the gesture' and 'the cherry picker' were solid. that's around the time i started warming up to this book.
reading these doctor memoirs make them feel like actual human beings with emotions instead robots that spend a quarter of their lives in school. can't believe i'm now actually considering the path.
also, this man moved traveled sooo much, especially as a kid. like wtf.
time of death: choose a number that sounds measured and not guessed. don't round.
reading these doctor memoirs make them feel like actual human beings with emotions instead robots that spend a quarter of their lives in school. can't believe i'm now actually considering the path.
also, this man moved traveled sooo much, especially as a kid. like wtf.
time of death: choose a number that sounds measured and not guessed. don't round.
October 8, 2020
I was expecting a book with exciting and dramatic stories from the emergency room, what I got instead was some rather mild watered down tales of medicine. This is a book filled with stories of what Huyler was thinking and feeling about the patients as well as stories from his life that were not related to emergency medicine. I know a lot of people thought it was insightful and amazing but I couldn't make it past 30%. If you're looking for an exciting book on trauma and the fast paced world of emergency medicine this is not the book for you.
August 21, 2020
I’ve always been fascinated by the medical field and I recommend this book to anyone who wonders what exactly goes on in an emergency room. With 25 years of experience, Dr. Frank Huyler has countless stories to tell, both amusing and heartbreaking, that vary in all aspects (age, injury, severity, etc). White Hot Light is well-written and compelling, containing vivid detail of certain procedures, treatments, and the human experience in general. I can not imagine the sacrifice and strength this career takes and I admire the author a ton. The stories are short and I finished the book itself in one sitting since I couldn’t tear myself away.
Thank you so much to Harper Perennial for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review! Publish Date 8/25/2020.
Thank you so much to Harper Perennial for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review! Publish Date 8/25/2020.
July 18, 2020
Wow.
I'll admit, I'm biased, as we share a career.
With grace and just enough romanticism, the author eloquently illustrates the life we've chosen. The sacrifices that are made with friendships and family, the bitter defeats of failure. The beauty that can be found when we see people at their best and their worst. It touched all the dark and twisty parts of my soul. But most of all, he captured the essence of what keeps me coming back each shift. "I understood that it wasn't my story, that I had no claim to it. Yet we can't help ourselves; we go on making some part of them our own."
I'll admit, I'm biased, as we share a career.
With grace and just enough romanticism, the author eloquently illustrates the life we've chosen. The sacrifices that are made with friendships and family, the bitter defeats of failure. The beauty that can be found when we see people at their best and their worst. It touched all the dark and twisty parts of my soul. But most of all, he captured the essence of what keeps me coming back each shift. "I understood that it wasn't my story, that I had no claim to it. Yet we can't help ourselves; we go on making some part of them our own."
May 13, 2024
I wish I could say I enjoyed reading this. Maybe I’m biased as an emergency physician, but I felt like most of the stories came across as self promoting and braggart. I am sure the author is likely not actually this way, and maybe this book is meant for those who are not in medicine so they may have a different opinion. There are relatable cases of course as any emergency physician would say, but I feel as if that is all I have in common with this author.
November 16, 2021
3.5. Well written but I did not feel the stories were cohesive. Not for the faint of heart!
March 26, 2026
Thoughtful and lyrical work on the practice of emergency medicine from Dr. Huyler.
September 14, 2024
niesamowita ksiazka z cudownym stylem posania, na pewno zachecila mnie do szerszego poznania literatury medycznej
July 12, 2026
A quick and easy read, but fragmented (literally into fragments of a page or so, sometimes a whole story, sometimes a section of a longer one) and not very cohesive.
September 22, 2022
Great writing
May 19, 2025
قرأته مترجما (ت. غيدا الشبيكي) عن دار أثرى للترجمة
April 1, 2021
This beautifully written book captures the ER experience of my own 25 years in healthcare. The poetic accuracy of Huyler’s language and observations reflects the best of those in whom’s hands we put our lives in our most vulnerable moments. Compassion with the precision we hope for in our healers, it’s all here- honesty, humor, humility and true soul.
May 19, 2026
Rounded up.
March 24, 2021
I read The Blood of Strangers in grad school. Enjoyed this equally. The ER is a compelling place, and Huyler writes crisply about the big questions (life/death etc.). In sections, especially an essay that is a litany on cancer, it veers macabre, but that doesn’t seem out of place in the collection as a whole.
His observations, at the cross-section of such a wide gamut of society, are so interesting and make me wish we had more worker-writers out there, people who weren’t just professionalized to the latter.
Reads like fiction, immersive, vivid, strong sense of narrative. I was picking it up every spare moment until I finished.
His observations, at the cross-section of such a wide gamut of society, are so interesting and make me wish we had more worker-writers out there, people who weren’t just professionalized to the latter.
Reads like fiction, immersive, vivid, strong sense of narrative. I was picking it up every spare moment until I finished.
August 6, 2020
Most of us live normal lives. We do normal things, think normal thoughts. We live in a normal bubble that we get to know pretty well and we deal with it the best way we know how. But not all of us live normal lives. What would we do if, at our work, the actual lives of our “clients”often depended on split-second decisions we had to make, not always knowing all the relevant facts? Where, if we mess up, someone might actually die? Where, on a daily basis, we got to see our fellow human beings often at their very worst, frightened, belligerent, narcissistic, foul smelling, wretched, ugly, nasty and grotesque, or sometimes the opposite, kind, caring, intelligent, helpful and understanding, accepting, resigned, hopeful? Where this stream of humanity in distress never ends, and so very often simply repeats itself? How would we “normal” ones react to all of that? And how could we describe it to those who did not share such a life? I am reminded of soldiers who come back from war and never want to talk about it because it is too difficult to describe and too painful to think about. Yet, here is the thing: there do exist, although rarely, great depictions of what war is like. And, just as rarely, there do exist equivalent depictions of life confronting medical emergencies, a life that shares some of the qualities of warfare. Frank Huyler’s “memoir,” for such is what it is, is a brilliant, wondrous example of medical writing that transcends itself and becomes a meditation on many big things, in the way that a great novel is a meditation on many profound and deeply human ideas and emotions. Huyler has written a wonderful work of literature steeped in the hyper-real world of disaster, life, death, hopefulness, despair; and when you come away from it he has changed your way of looking at the world, what it means to be human, what it means to see suffering every day, and what it means to try to understand it and attempt to derive some sort of basic knowledge about it that can illuminate your own life. This book is that good.
May 6, 2025
Pretty nice scatterminded book to break my slump ..
Some notable takeaways that come with experience
- be as non judgmental as possible, everyone has their own lives with struggle (sensible)
- appreciate the time - it will pass
- foster community
- help when you can help
- show emotion in medicine
Notable chapter in the book is the author learning about his fat PA coworker that wasn’t always fat and learning about his backstory after he passed and his coworkers held a viewing of his favorite photographs
Some notable takeaways that come with experience
- be as non judgmental as possible, everyone has their own lives with struggle (sensible)
- appreciate the time - it will pass
- foster community
- help when you can help
- show emotion in medicine
Notable chapter in the book is the author learning about his fat PA coworker that wasn’t always fat and learning about his backstory after he passed and his coworkers held a viewing of his favorite photographs
October 11, 2020
Huyler writes each word with purpose and with a lyrical quality. His vast experience in an ER is evident in the stories and it provided an interesting viewpoint into the medical field.
I do wish I realized the structure of the book was that of essays which flowed much differently than the memoirs I have grown accustomed to. I much prefer a bit of context to the main character and the setting, which White Hot Light did not have.
I believe this book would be better enjoyed by those in the medical field as many technical terms, medications and procedures were named without explaining them for us who are not as familiar.
Yet at the same time, this book made use out of all the episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs I’ve watched over the years because I had a general framework for what was being discussed!
Death is the constant theme in the majority of the essays, so be prepared for that. There are some positive outcomes, but overall the stories end in grief.
I do appreciate the candidness of the author as he shares what it’s like from inside a hospital, the dynamics between nurses and doctors and the toll working in this stressful field has on a person.
Thank you to the publisher for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
I do wish I realized the structure of the book was that of essays which flowed much differently than the memoirs I have grown accustomed to. I much prefer a bit of context to the main character and the setting, which White Hot Light did not have.
I believe this book would be better enjoyed by those in the medical field as many technical terms, medications and procedures were named without explaining them for us who are not as familiar.
Yet at the same time, this book made use out of all the episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs I’ve watched over the years because I had a general framework for what was being discussed!
Death is the constant theme in the majority of the essays, so be prepared for that. There are some positive outcomes, but overall the stories end in grief.
I do appreciate the candidness of the author as he shares what it’s like from inside a hospital, the dynamics between nurses and doctors and the toll working in this stressful field has on a person.
Thank you to the publisher for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
January 11, 2022
3 stars and some change. This is a book of essays and that may be why a 3 instead of a 4. Essays still need a beginning, middle and end or they don’t satisfy me. These essays are more meandering streams of consciousness.
I am highly impressed with the lyrical way in which this doctor writes. An assumption of mine is that one is either right brained or left brained wired and never both. This doctor seems both.
Here’s a glimpse of how he sees life because he is faced with life and death everyday:
“I’ve seen enough people die that many are wiped clean from my memory. Others are vague, imperfectly formed, in that way we half glimpse the past and reconstruct it, sifting and weighing what to keep, and what to leave behind, by the mysterious means. We don’t know what will stay with us and what will go, what conversations we will remember and what we will forget, what we once said and what we once heard. I suppose we choose our lessons as well, those stories of this world we want to keep, and those we want to throw away.”
3 stars+ = I enjoyed the book. The writing was good. I would not likely recommend to my book people. OTOH, I could recommend it in general.
I am highly impressed with the lyrical way in which this doctor writes. An assumption of mine is that one is either right brained or left brained wired and never both. This doctor seems both.
Here’s a glimpse of how he sees life because he is faced with life and death everyday:
“I’ve seen enough people die that many are wiped clean from my memory. Others are vague, imperfectly formed, in that way we half glimpse the past and reconstruct it, sifting and weighing what to keep, and what to leave behind, by the mysterious means. We don’t know what will stay with us and what will go, what conversations we will remember and what we will forget, what we once said and what we once heard. I suppose we choose our lessons as well, those stories of this world we want to keep, and those we want to throw away.”
3 stars+ = I enjoyed the book. The writing was good. I would not likely recommend to my book people. OTOH, I could recommend it in general.
October 11, 2020
In this book, we get to see an emergency room through the eyes of an ER doctor in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He paints a vivid picture of what life is like for healthcare workers in the ER. They see the sad, the hopeless, the recoveries, and the miracles in people’s lives every day. As a healthcare worker myself, I appreciated the honest and realistic writing of Dr. Huyler.
Dr. Huyler describes scenes he’s witnessed in the ER using such poetic writing that it was almost beautiful to read. Each of the stories was fairly short and it never seemed like the book dragged on. Even the less exciting stories were written in a way that made them interesting and easy to read. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting an idea of what emergency medicine can look like, anyone thinking of medicine as a career choice, and anyone that works in the healthcare field!
*Thank you to Harper Perennial for a finished copy of this book in exchange for my honest review*
Dr. Huyler describes scenes he’s witnessed in the ER using such poetic writing that it was almost beautiful to read. Each of the stories was fairly short and it never seemed like the book dragged on. Even the less exciting stories were written in a way that made them interesting and easy to read. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting an idea of what emergency medicine can look like, anyone thinking of medicine as a career choice, and anyone that works in the healthcare field!
*Thank you to Harper Perennial for a finished copy of this book in exchange for my honest review*
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