No comments about Doctors' Work: The Legacy of Sir William Osler.

5 comments about You Are Here: A Memoir of Arrival.

1. I did not find this book as good as other reveiwers made it sound. Most problematic for me was the too frequent use of tortured and cute metaphors and similes. More editing should have been done. Unless you can read "my heart hummingbirded in my chest". . ."I rolled my dewy Coke against my cheek". . ."platters of tuna melt the size of satellite dishes" and many, many more of such passages without a wince, you are better off with David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs.



2. I read "You Are Here" as a recent vacation read... the cover design alone was inticing. I'm not sure I had an expectation of the book, but I found it to be dull and uninspired. Like the author, I moved to New York right out of college, but a lot of his experiences seemed more whiney and priviledged than pithy or universal. Can't live well in New York at a young age? Join the human race! Most people don't live well at that age. At times he seems grandiose, such as in passages where he talks about being depressed that he isn't a published author yet. Considering that his writing isn't much better than a lot of aspiring writers, his egotism (which may just be poorly expressed irony) detracts from his storytelling.

   All in all, "You Are Here" reads like the memoirs of some guy who lucked into a publishing contract. David Sedaris, breathe easy.




3. This book is generally good. I liked it and am glad I purchased it new. The problem is that it's almost like Gibson wrote this novel like a session on a psychologist's couch, with every little detail of every person he ever met and everything he ever experienced - without full regard for what the reader would like to hear. There are some details in here I find too graphic and disgusting, such as when he helped a morbidly obese neighbor off a toilet.
   
   The book gets a lot better halfway through, and continues to become more moving through the end. The story of Wesley's roommate John and his eventual death from lung cancer paints a beautiful picture of human frailty and the bonds that exist between us.
   
   I am enraptured of New York City and like to read people's accounts of it. I am also a writer like him. Gibson did not disappoint.



4. Maybe a requirement of reviewing a book is actually finishing it - but I just couldn't get through this one. The book basically details a gay man moving to New York and attempting to make it..... I thought it would be a great book, but I was mistaken. The author's language was obtuse... the phrase: TRYING TOO HARD comes to mind.... I'm sorry Mr. Gibson if I am being unfair - I'll try to finish your next one.



5. I didn't really think I'd enjoy this book because it was advertised in the New Yorker. Shallow reasoning eh? But anyhow a very good friend gave me a copy of Gibson's book for my birthday and so I felt I had to read it. Well let that be a lesson to me, from now on I will scour the New Yorker looking at all its ads, for this particular book, a cross between a memoir and a novel, turned out to be very good. I could not put it down, even though I had a zillion other things to do. I just kept reading as the day wore on and the sun went down and I had to fumble with the lamp to switch it on without diverting my attention from the page.
   
   I felt I had to know what was happening with John, and what was up with Alan, and what was going to happen to Wesley once the full dimensions of John's illness became obvious. It isn't that the plot is so strong, indeed, hardly anything happens, so don't come to this book looking for Clive Cussler style action. No, it is Gibson's wonderful insight into all the little crazy things we humans do, that make the book so compelling. I feel not so much as that after reading his book I know Wesley Gibson, but rather that through some magical gift of X-ray vision into the heart, he knows me.
   
   I used to live in New York so I'm familiar with the rat race of trying to find somewhere decent to rent. And who hasn't lived through the misery of having someone die on you; even if you aren't in love with them, it still knocks you on your ass. With his love of language and his discernment and humility, Wesley Gibson brings all these things right to the surface, the place where the reader and writer extend hands and touch fingertips.

1 comments about Hippocrates, Volume IV: Nature of Man (Loeb Classical Library, No. 150).

1. In fact, the author of Ancient Medicine attributes the discovery of medicine to experiments in treating natural products to make them more suitable for human consumption, by "steeping, winnowing, grinding and sifting, kneading, baking ... combining the weaker components so as to adapt all to the constitution and power of man." This text is good as a reference guide for students studying in the medical field.

No comments about The Trouble with Lions: A Glasgow Vet in Africa (Wayfarer).

No comments about Stroke of Luck: Life, Crisis and Rebirth of a Stroke Survivor.

No comments about Odyssey in Hell.

5 comments about Walking Out on the Boys.

1. Sadly, any woman who's achieved a doctorate (& not just in medicine) will relate wholeheartedly to this book. I greatly admire Dr. Conley's unbelievable courage in standing up to the Boys' Club & trying to make things better for women in academia. Hopefully this book will encourage ALL women to stand up to the misogyny & be heard.



2. Frances Conley offers a compelling indictment of gender discrimination at Stanford Medical School, past and present, focussing on her own recent experience. I started this book at midnight and could not put it down until finishing it at 4 a.m. Conley provides case after case of medical school professors given virtually absolute and unchecked power over their subordinates and their subordinates' careers, abusing that power, and the medical school administration covering up that abuse. While she never addresses the issues of solidarity in the face of sexual harassment, her cases all indicate that when one woman protests, she loses, and only a pattern of abuse reported by multiple women leads to any punishment of the harassers at all. Conley was fortunate and grateful that 37 others came forward to support her claim that Gerald Silverberg engaged in inappropriate sexual contact and other activities counterindicating his capability for leadership. I'll be passing this book onto many women who have had the choice to be treated at Stanford Hospital and may well now rethink that choice.



3. I'm not an MD or a PhD; I don't work in a hospital or academia. Yet I too have experienced sexual harassment, and I too have consulted the EEO department that is supposed to get involved in handling these issues, and I found that they were disinterested, that they gave subtle and obvious messages that the problem was "my" problem and not the corporation's, and that they relied on my being too timid or unmotivated to initiate a lawsuit so the whole thing could be, well, ignored. Sexual harassment exists because the society permits men (even encourages men) to expect that it is their right to harass women. Not all men harass, and not all men admire harassers. In fact, it is quite the opposite, but those who possess the attitude that women who dare to compete must be put down through sexual threat or debasement will harass (they also enjoy and even need it, since these men have very real problems). Through her description of her own experiences, the author illuminates the social mechanism of harassment. She also brings to light the story that all we women know -- what it feels like to be the victim not just of a troubled person but of an organization that insists she accept the role of victim. When we are harassed, we women discover the battle we are in, not against one man but against all those societies which are founded on (this does sound harsh, I know) the hatred of women. This is a marvelous book -- hard to read at times if you've been there -- but it is important that women know what we are facing (especially our daughters, who like us may have been programmed to think that all men will be nice to us, will treat us fairly, and that if someone is abusive, it is our own fault, there is something wrong with me, etc.). Important too is having the author detail the steps she took to handle the harassment. This is a very supportive book for anyone enduring just such a situation (harassment as well as gender discrimination, which is a lot more rife and a lot less obvious). I'd recommend this to any woman who is willing to step outside of the traditional role, because we all need to know what we are up against, how the system is going to fail us, and especially all the steps we are entitled to take to combat this problem so that we change society's viewpoint and not just our own. I'd also recommend this to men, because there are many who are supportive of women in the workplace. Our husbands and boyfriends need to read this book to know how difficult it is for women, because in the end we can only effect a change if we all stand together.



4. As a minority faculty in the academics Frances Conley's book vividly portrays the reality of the ivory tower that, though pretentiously progressive in ideas, is way behind the iota of gender equality that exists outside the academe. I, sometimes, feel I am living in the medieval period when entering the academe.

   When I first came across this book I thought this must have been written in the seventies and I could share it with my students as a historical autobiography of sexism in an academic institution. I was horrified to find that it was written in the nineties about one of the most prestigious institution in California.

   I have always felt alone, alienated in the academe and of course disconnected from other women who were struggling too much to bother with the problems of their women peers. This book validated my experience and helped me understand where my alienation was coming from.

   I wish this book could be a standard read for all freshman students in all universities. Only when women who appear to be in power tell their stories of powerlessness and abuse can we act collectively to stop the misogyny that exists among our men and more particularly among our elite men.




5. Men groping women. Men coming on to women, and making incredible jackasses of themselves in the process. Men getting drunk and acting like barbarians. Men with one thing in mind. Men whose compulsion to talk about sex is so strong that they do it at highly inappropriate times in public. Men who think that pressuring women is their God-given right. If you think that what I just described is a high school football team on an overdose of steroids, you're wrong. These sexual antics weren't perpetrated by adolescents with testosterone bubbling out their ears, they were committed by male doctors at Stanford University. Not being stupid, these demigods put two and two together and realized that they could use their power to pressure women. One of these men made a fatal mistake, though: he pressured Dr. Frances Conley, a topnotch neurosurgeon and renowned researcher at Stanford. Bad move, fella. I suppose that guy never learned that if you're going to pick a fight, you don't provoke someone who can whack you back so hard you just might rethink whether it's wise to be a bully.

   As publicity spread about Dr. Conley's fight, more and more women came forward to reveal their stories. This was certainly an eye-opening book. Before reading it, I'd never given much thought about the sexual harassment of women in medicine and allied healthcare fields. Perhaps we're more civilized here in Michigan, because I've never seen or heard of any such hanky-panky. Well, let me revise that last statement: I have witnessed a lot of sexual inducement, but what I saw was women chasing men not the other way around. But everyone knows that those California folks are trendsetters.

   Dr. Conley never envisioned herself as a trendsetter, though. For years, she passively participated in the abuse until a concatenation of events convinced her that it was time to draw a line in the sand. To make a long story short, the men didn't believe she'd put up much of a fight, but she did, and they lost. Big time.

   (...) Perhaps the most chilling message in this book is that some men in positions of power are willing to use that power to stifle the careers of women. So what is an attractive woman to assume? That if she goes into medicine her pulchritude will serve as a magnet for sexual harassment? Perhaps this abuse is, unbeknownst to me, more pervasive than I think. I suppose because most of my friends are women, I can't understand men who view women as being somehow inferior. However, you shouldn't necessarily construe from that statement that I think women physicians are as competent, on average, as male physicians. There's no doubt that some are, and there's no doubt that Dr. Conley is a superior physician, not just competent. (...) My only major criticism of the book is that it is too focused upon abuse of women by men. Since the core of this book is hinged upon some of the depredations that ensue when power is abused, I think she could have achieved a more balanced perspective by pointing out that powerful people often use their power against men, too � not just women. I've seen male docs fight one another with such a vehemence that it made the stories in Dr. Conley's book seem as pleasant as afternoon tea and cookies with a neighbor. Consequently, while I don't intend to trivialize the unfortunate reality of the abuse Dr. Conley documents, it's important to keep in mind that this abuse is but one aspect of a much larger problem. In defense of Dr. Conley, broadening the scope of this book to include other aspects of hospital politics would have diluted the message she wished to inculcate, and it would have made for a very unwieldy book. With that in mind, I suppose I'm on shaky ground by wishing that her book had a wider focus. Her book, her demeanor, her dedication, her resolve, and her competence are commendable. Dr. Conley is a great doctor and I am happy to have met her, however indirectly, by reading this book.

   Review by Kevin Pezzi, M.D.

No comments about Juvenile Delinquent to Surgeon: A Surgeon's Memoir.

No comments about F.M.: The Life of Frederick Matthias Alexander: Founder of the Alexander Technique.

No comments about Hunted Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus, 1511-1553.