2 comments about Yes, Sister: Memoir of a Young Nurse.

1. Yes, Sister is a must read for everyone who cares about people. The emotions involved in the situations encountered by this young nurse are communicated so well that I was often in tears while ready this book. I felt her joys, her disappointments and her pain. Ms. Yates-Adelman sure knows how to tell a story that leaves one feeling like she's been by the nurse's side throughout. Thank you Ms. Yates-Adelman wherever you are!!!



2. I graduated from Holy Cross School of Nursing a few years before the author.
   I found out about this book at our 50th class reunion last week. I borrowed a classmate's copy and
   laughed and cried. It was like reliving my own experience.
   
   Sr. LeClerc may have been "hard" on us, but we have tried to live up to the potential
   she saw in us and we should all thank her.
   I couldn't wait to get back to the States from Calgary and log on to Amazon to buy my own copy.
   
   Thanks Donna for a wonderful trip down memory lane... but I'm sure any nurse could identify
   with the story, and it's a great book for the lay reader to understand what goes into the making of a nurse!

5 comments about The Medic: Life and Death in the Last Days of World War II.

1. "'Aid Man!' ... He ran up to me. He shouted in my face. 'Aid Man!' He grabbed my shoulders, his mouth agape, heaving air. 'A man got his leg blowed off. Let's go!'" This was Leo Litwak's first shot of many to come at saving a life. Leo was a young Jewish boy being trained as a medic in South Carolina. It was February of 1943, and, sooner than he would have preferred, Leo would be immersed in World War II. This is a true story and an excellent one as well. Leo Litwak does a wonderful job telling the truth in this book leaving no goury details out. His book shows all aspects of the war. He shows the soft side, dark side, romantic side, and even the surprising side. Gloria Emerson from the Los Angeles Times states, "[This is a] book that should be given to every schoolboy in the country at the age of thirteen." I must agree with this statement because all the reality and accuracy in this book will inform them that there's not always a happy ending and that war is nothing like Hollywood.



2. I was expecting a more in-depth analysis into the combat and mental condition of a medic, but what I got was a long drawn out story of himself. There was no connection w/ his fellow men and if there was, it was just a misconception. Basically, he just want to forget about the war, the horror, and the cruelty behind it. If that is the case, then why write the book.



3. I was disappointed in this book. Maybe I went into it with too high an expectation. I knew going in, it was a dramatized version of Mr. Litwak's experiences but I expected more insight into his job as a medic. there were relatively few scenes of his actually work. In that way, I would say the title is misleading. It really is a book of one man's army service in Europe during the later days of World War II. He seems to have disliked everyone he served with and Mr. Litwak has the right to be. there were more sex stories than medic stories. the Sgt. Lucca story I thought would help me gain more insight into the author. But it left me looking for more of an explanation of how Mr. Litwak really felt. Did he like the Sgt. or not? He seems to have been hurt by his death but I am not sure.
   Thebook overall does help one experience WWII from a more realistic standpoint. But a non-fiction approach would have been more of a contribution.



4. Leo Litwak's recollections of his service in WWII as a combat medic is not what I had expected. I had anticipated a memoir - instead the book is essentially a collection of vignettes and impressions the author had during his service in Europe in the final year of the war. Litwak admits in his foreward that unit names and places had been changed, and that some individuals mentioned in the book were composites of personalities he knew. I appreciated his honesty.

   After reading the book, I also appreciated his honesty in presenting his perspective on the war. The graft and looting by "our boys." The whoring around. The detached neutrality of working on the wounded, and the non-chalance of seeing so much death so often. Not everyone who served in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) saw combat; and not everyone who saw combat in the ETO was there from the Normandy landing to V-E day. Litwak was honest about his service, his experiences, and his impressions.

   As a combat medic from a later war, I had anticipated experiences and recollections similar to my own. While we had some experiences in common, we had many more differences as we served in two very different times. Nonetheless, the honesty with which Litwak writes of his time in Europe is not a romanticized or sanitized version of WWII. And aside from the obvilious shortcomings of his composites, it is real at an emotional (if not strictly historical) level.




5. This is a very good read. It speaks a lot about the relationships that develop (good and bad) as much as the war.

No comments about Passage Through Trinidad: Journal of a Surgical Sex Change.

2 comments about Keys to the Asylum : A Dean, a Medical School, and Academic Politics.

1. Dr. Bloomfield, Founder and Dean of a new and innovative medical school at the University of Illinois, describes the challenges and frustrations of creativity within a bureaucratic state system. His description of the hurdles he had to leap, and especially the lack of support (primarily financial) offered to him, would make most people cave in. Balanced with these frustrations is the extraordinary success he was able to achieve. It is a credit to him and to his colleagues that so much was accomplished. And that is what makes the story bearable. I would encourage university administrators and those interested in innovative approaches to medical (and other professional) disciplines to read this book.



2. This interesting story, part autobiography and full of history, details the incipient days of founding a medical institution. Literally from the ground up, Dr. Bloomfield describes how an idea, great innovation, procuring the funding, and convincing the politicians resulted in the beginning construction. His Part II, "The Act of Creation" goes to the heart of finding the curriculum and the students to use it. Tension and relief bob up and down as the unchartered meets the new sailors. Then the bureaucracy gravitates and its inertia sometimes slows, other time really impedes the progress. Nevertheless, there is something to say for the distillation process, which in the end seems to come up with the right mixture of what should and what could be done.

   What comes through the pages is the love for education, the purity of intent that Dr. Bloomfield had. Battling with detractors, some with power and others with jealousy seemed to invigorate his pugnacious side. When he found the good guys, nestled among the many people with whom he had to deal, he had genuine concern for their thoughts and suggestions.

   Lessons take many forms and the path to this school showed many roads to take for projects we might consider. Reading about this effort and enjoying the success in the epilogue, I could find many useful suggestions and tactics. Such books bear the signature of the great medical administrators who steered the medical schools in the 60's to 80's in some very troubled times.

No comments about R. M. Bucke: Journey to Cosmic Consciousness (Canadian Medical Lives).

No comments about Tincture of Tears and Laughter.

No comments about Blood, Sweat, and IV Drops.

No comments about I Know You Really Love Me: A Psychiatrist's Journal of Erotomania, Stalking, & Obsessive Love.

No comments about Fifty Years Afield and Ten Seasons: Young Man's Dream; Old Man's Reality.

No comments about Health Heroes: Edward Livingston Trudeau.