Friday, September 25, 2009

great book of stories

Y'all will remember how I love Richard Selzer's book, "the Doctor Stories": so now I found another great book, called "The Orange Wire Problem, and other tales from the doctor's office" by David Watts, MD. He is a gastroenterologist and plays the french horn in San Francisco, and his book is earthy, poignant, warm, fabulously written, and interesting/riveting. He talks about making jazz riffs, and how one needs to know the melody, as well as how to make music, to do it well, as a model of practicing medicine. I think his patients are really lucky to have such a great doctor. I love the introduction, which ends "... change suffering into art and dissonance into music". You could do worse, in trying to understand how a doctor thinks. You also could hardly do better. His writing is fine, insightful, and fast-paced. And "balanced!"

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